Administration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 2023

December 12, 2023

No woman should be forced to go to court or flee her home State just to receive the health care she needs. But that is exactly what happened in Texas thanks to Republican elected officials, and it is simply outrageous. This should never happen in America, period.

Legal and medical chaos, as we are witnessing in States like Texas, Kentucky, and Arizona, is a direct result of *Roe *v. *Wade *being overturned, and as we predicted would happen, women's health and lives now hang in the balance. Republican elected officials have imposed dangerous abortion bans that jeopardize women's health, force them to travel out of State for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors. Their agenda is extreme and out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans.

The Vice President and I will continue to fight to protect access to reproductive health care and to urge Congress to restore the protections of *Roe *v. *Wade *now so that women in every State have the right to make their own health care decisions.

Categories: Statements by the President : Abortion and reproductive health care, State efforts to restrict access.

Names: Harris, Kamala D.

Subjects: Abortion; Health care, access and affordability; Reproductive health care; U.S. Supreme Court opinion overturning 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade; Vice President; Women's rights and gender equality.

DCPD Number: DCPD202301107.

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