In his first days in office, President-elect Joe Biden is expected pass a series of executive orders bypassing a divided congress to undo the domestic and foreign policies of the outgoing administration.
Among proposals of a new immigration bill, a return to the Paris climate accords and a revival fo the Iran nuclear deal, Biden, a devout Catholic, is set to overturn the limits on abortion and planned parenthood imposed by Trump.
CEO and president of Planned Parenthood, Alexis McGill Johnson, is delighted by the news.
“We have a ton of work to do to undo the harm over the last four years, but knowing we have champions there who understand what needs to happen in the first 100 days is tremendously exciting”, he said.
As well as overturning the Mexico City Policy, which prevents the US government from funding any overseas health organisations that offer information or services for abortion, Biden also promised to restore federal funding for planned parenthood (barred under the Hyde Amendment) and the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.
With a majority of conservative justices on the Supreme Court, following the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett last year, questions over the the 1973 ruling raised and conservative states cracking down on abortion, perhaps most important among expected changes, is Biden’s promise to codify the Roe v Wade ruling in federal law, which would prevent states from breaching the ruling and the judiciary from overturning it.
Whatever comes, the Biden-Harris administration is expected to be one of if not the most pro-choice in US history.
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