(NEW YORK) — A 15-year-old boy has been charged with murder stemming from the fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old boy on a New York City subway platform, authorities said.
The teen suspect, whose name was not released because he is charged as a minor, is also charged with criminal possession of a weapon, according to the New York Police Department.
Police identified the victim as Ethan Reyes, 14, of Yonkers, New York.
The stabbing unfolded around 3 p.m. Saturday when officers responded to a report of “a crime in progress” inside the West 137th Street-City College train station in the city’s upper Manhattan neighborhood, according to the NYPD.
Officers found Reyes on the northbound No. 1 line platform with a stab wound to the abdomen. He was taken by ambulance to nearby Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, NYPD Transit Chief Jason Wilcox said at a news conference Saturday night.
Wilcox said the suspect, initially identified as a person of interest in the homicide, was taken into custody for questioning after being found at West 173rd St. and Broadway suffering wounds to the back, abdomen and left hip, Wilcox said. He said the individual was taken to a hospital for treatment and is expected to survive, police said.
A preliminary investigation found that a fight or dispute between the suspect and victim began outside and spilled into the West 137th St. station, where investigators believe Reyes was stabbed on the subway platform, police said.
Wilcox said the NYPD Crime Scene Unit recovered a knife and a broomstick from the crime scene.
It was not immediately clear what the fatal fight was about.
The slaying followed a series of recent high-profile crimes that have taken place in the New York City subway system, including some captured by passengers on cell phone video.
In April, a 62-year-old man was arrested and indicted on federal terrorism charges after he allegedly detonated a smoke bomb and shot 10 passengers on a Manhattan-bound N subway train during the morning rush-hour commute.
In March, a 25-year-old man was charged with murder after police alleged he abruptly pulled a gun and randomly shot a 48-year-old stranger on a Q line train heading from Brooklyn to Manhattan, according to prosecutors.
In January, a 40-year-old woman died after she was pushed onto the subway tracks and struck by an oncoming train at the Times Square-42nd Street station. A 61-year-old man, described by police as homeless, was charged with second-degree murder, but has since been declared mentally unfit to stand trial and placed in a psychiatric facility indefinitely.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will host hundreds impacted by gun violence on the White House South Lawn Monday to tout the first major bipartisan gun legislation to pass through Congress in nearly 30 years.
Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law last month, but the signing was somewhat overshadowed, coming one day after the Supreme Court released its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Monday provides the president a new opportunity to take a victory lap — but it comes one week after another mass shooting at a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois, left seven dead and dozens wounded.
“I recently signed the first major bipartisan gun reform legislation in almost 30 years into law, which includes actions that will save lives,” Biden said in the Roosevelt Room addressing the latest mass shooting. “But there is much more work to do, and I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence.”
Gun violence survivors and family members of victims of recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, are expected to attend, as well as survivors and family members from the Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland mass shootings, among others. But while many in attendance are expected to praise the legislation, some gun safety advocates lament that it doesn’t go far enough.
Guns Down America and other gun violence advocacy groups are expected to host a counter-programming event Monday outside the White House calling on Biden to establish an office at the White House to more urgently address gun violence.
Ahead of Monday’s event, Biden asked Americans in a tweet to text him their stories of how gun violence has impacted their communities, looking to tout how the new law will help stop similar violence.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act includes $13 billion in new spending for mental health programs and for securing schools. It also makes background checks stricter for gun buyers under 21, helps to close the so-called boyfriend loophole to restrict domestic violence offenders from purchasing guns, and incentivizes red flag laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
But it doesn’t go as far as many wanted, including Biden, lacking measures such as universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
As the president marks progress on gun reform Monday, he will also call on Congress to act further.
Biden is expected to urge Congress to confirm Steve Dettelbach to serve as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
He will also call on Congress to bring him “legislation that would ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, strengthen background checks, and enact safe storage laws,” according to the White House.
The president’s call for more congressional action comes as the Senate returns from its July Fourth recess Monday. Notably, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will not be at Biden’s event, as he is isolated with COVID-19.
Schumer’s positive test serves as a reminder that COVID is still a looming threat, though the close spacing of chairs on the White House South Lawn Monday doesn’t appear to reflect that concern.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Dangerous heat is enveloping a large swath of the U.S., with temperatures forecast to climb above 100 degrees Monday from California to Arizona to Texas to Missouri.
Temperatures on Monday could reach a scorching 111 degrees in Redding, California; 114 in Palm Springs; 112 in Las Vegas; and 115 in Phoenix.
East of the Rockies, the humidity combined with the heat will make it feel oppressive. The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — is forecast to skyrocket to 111 degrees in Austin, Texas; 109 in Houston; 105 in Dallas; 104 in St. Louis and 99 in Memphis, Tennessee.
College Station, Texas, reached a record high temperature of 111 degrees this weekend. At Camp Mabry, a military base in the Austin area, the temperature reached a July record high of 110.
More record highs are possible Monday in Texas, Northern California and Oregon.
Some of this heat will stretch into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a forecast of 92 degrees in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia and 91 degrees in New York. With humidity, it will feel like the upper 90s in some areas.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department revealed in an early Monday morning court filing that federal investigators interviewed former President Donald Trump’s attorney Justin Clark two weeks ago in connection with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal contempt case.
Prosecutors say that Clark confirmed in the interview that at no point did Trump ever invoke executive privilege over Bannon’s testimony — and directly contradicted other claims made by Bannon’s defense team in their case.
Bannon was charged last year with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after defying a Jan. 6 subpoena, though he argued Trump’s privilege claim protected him. He pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial next week.
Prosecutors say in Monday’s filing that they believe Bannon’s recent efforts in conjunction with Trump to offer to finally testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack are no more than an effort to try to make Bannon more of a sympathetic figure to the jury he’s set to face next week.
“All of the above-described circumstances suggest the Defendant’s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet his obligations but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability,” prosecutors say.
“The Defendant’s timing suggests that the only thing that has really changed since he refused to comply with the subpoena in October 2021 is that he is finally about to face the consequences of his decision to default,” prosecutors said in the filing.
Regarding Bannon, the filing also said Clark told investigators that he “never asked or was asked to attend the Defendant’s deposition before the Select Committee; that the Defendant’s attorney misrepresented to the Committee what the former President’s counsel had told the Defendant’s attorney; and that the former President’s counsel made clear to the Defendant’s attorney that the letter provided no basis for total noncompliance.”
Neither representatives for Bannon or the Jan. 6 committee immediately responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Bannon remained an outside adviser to Trump after helping to lead Trump’s first presidential campaign and serving a short stint in the White House. He was at a meeting at the Willard Hotel where lawmakers were encouraged to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in the lead-up to Jan. 6, the House Jan. 6 committee claimed in a 2021 letter to Bannon that accompanied his subpoena.
On his final night in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, who had been indicted on charges tied to an alleged conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering related to a crowdfunding effort to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Prosecutors had accused Bannon of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to the “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign by falsely claiming that he and other organizers would not take a cut of any donated funds. Prosecutors alleged that organizers of the group, including Bannon, syphoned off at least $1 million for their own personal expenses.
Two of Bannon’s co-defendants in the case, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who did not receive pardons from Trump, pleaded guilty. The trial for a third co-defendant, Timothy Shea, ended in a mistrial after the jury could not reach a verdict.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 on Tuesday announced its next hearing: July 12 beginning at 1 p.m. ET.
The panel has been holding a series of public hearings since last month related to its year-long inquiry into the events before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters.
It has not yet been announced who will be testifying on July 12. The past hearings have stretched for several hours. The committee initially said the hearing would start at 10 a.m. ET but on Sunday announced the updated start time.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the panel, indicated earlier this month that the next hearing would focus on the formation of the mob that ultimately descended on the Capitol last year, including the participation of several far-right groups.
“Who was participating, who was financing it, how it was organized, including the participation of these white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, and others,” Schiff said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who served as the lead impeachment manager for the House proceedings against then-President Donald Trump after the insurrection, is anticipated to play a large role.
The last hearing featured lengthy testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
Hutchinson’s appearance sparked days of criticism of Trump — including from other conservatives — after she testified that the former president was aware that attendees of his speech at the Ellipse earlier on Jan. 6 were armed before he asked for security measures to be reduced and ultimately urged them to march to the Capitol. Hutchinson also testified that when the Secret Service would not take Trump to the Capitol after his speech, he lunged for the steering wheel of his SUV and then at the neck of a Secret Service agent.
Trump adamantly denied her account. The Secret Service said it would cooperate fully with the panel, “including by responding on the record,” if investigators had any follow up questions over the alleged incident.
Other hearings the committee has held have focused on the Capitol insurrection itself; on Trump allies’ awareness that his voter fraud claims were false; and on the pressure campaign by Trump and those in his orbit to push states to not certify now-President Joe Biden’s win.
In her testimony last week, Hutchinson said she had heard chatter about the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers — two prominent far-right groups — in the days leading up to Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. She said that Rudy Giuliani, who was then Trump’s personal lawyer, was frequently seen around the White House at the same time.
Leaders of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been charged with seditious conspiracy over the groups’ roles in last year’s riot.
A car sits parked outside of the Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinic in San Antonio, Texas, Feb. 16, 2016. – Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the South has become covered with abortion bans.
Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas — along with Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota — all now have near-total bans on abortion in effect. The clinics that had been working there spent years navigating previous restrictions and fighting off state laws.
Now, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, which has facilities in Texas, staff are grappling with the idea that “there is no narrative that’s going to allow us to reopen. There is no lawsuit we get to try to win this time or some kind of fight that we can fight this time that will allow us to resume the care that we know our communities need.”
Instead, clinic leaders in these states are fully changing plans as they have stopped providing abortions. For some, this means staying open but altering the care provided. For others, this means packing up and leaving for good, with the intention of serving patients in the South by reopening in nearby states where abortion is still legal.
For all, there is worry for the patients who will not be able to access care they seek.
“I am very concerned about what the hospitals are going to see, when the hospital emergency rooms begin to receive women who have been desperate and take desperate measures,” Kathaleen Pittman, administrator for the New Hope Medical for Women in Louisiana, told ABC News.
Staying open, with new priorities
The West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa halted abortion operations as soon as the Supreme Court decision was announced on June 24. The state swiftly moved to ban an abortion, with a law that makes it a Class A felony to perform an abortion, except to prevent a serious health risk to the pregnant person.
The center closed down on June 29. But at 8 a.m. on July 11, the center will be reopening, according to operations director Robin Marty, who called the two-week closure a “clean break” between the past and present.
Due to legal concerns, the clinic will no longer provide abortions but will continue to offer access to contraceptives and HIV testing, among other sexual health services, Marty said.
The clinic will also no longer provide information or resources to assist pregnant people traveling to obtain an abortion elsewhere. This, Marty said, is because Alabama officials, including the state’s attorney general, have said they will consider expanding the criminality of abortion to those who help — logistically or financially — someone obtain an abortion outside of the state.
Despite these changes, Marty said, the clinic will assist those experiencing bleeding or possible miscarriages, no questions asked.
“There is a severe lack of health care in Alabama, there’s not a lot of providers or hospitals, there’s not a lot of access to contraceptives or to OB care in general,” Marty said. “There are hospitals and doctors that just don’t entirely know what care to do for patients who are bleeding.”
The Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana, too will stay open, Pittman said — for options counseling and to provide ultrasounds.
“We’re going to continue to keep our doors open. We’ll do everything we can within the law to help the women and just hope,” she said.
The Louisiana Supreme Court allowed a ban on nearly all abortion to go into effect Friday after a series of court challenges by local abortion providers was moved to another jurisdiction. There is ongoing legal action on this front.
New Mexico becomes an outlet for the corridor
Meanwhile, at least two clinics in the block of southern states with bans are closing down and relocating to New Mexico. Along the southern border, abortion is largely illegal from Texas to Alabama.
Florida and Georgia do not have full bans, but do have gestational limits either in effect (Florida, 15 weeks) or tied up in courts (Georgia, six weeks). With Republican governors, abortion rights advocates do not believe these states are safe for abortion access.
But out to the West on the southern border, abortion rights advocates and providers see hope in New Mexico, where Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has vowed, “As long as I am governor, abortion will continue to be legal, safe, and accessible.”
Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, which was at the center of the Supreme Court case that led to the overturning of Roe, is taking that as an invitation. The clinic will be closing down in Mississippi, where a so-called “trigger law” went into effect on Thursday, and reopening in New Mexico, Diane Derzis, owner of the clinic, told ABC News, where they have been “accepted and welcomed.”
Derzis said the New Mexico facility will be a full-service abortion clinic.
“This is today in this country. Mississippi is the past, and the future is moving on to where women have an option,” she said.
Likewise, Whole Woman’s Health is closing operations in Texas, where the organization got its start almost 20 years ago, and planning to open a clinic in New Mexico, Hagstrom Miller told ABC News, calling the state “a beacon of hope.”
Just six years ago, Whole Woman’s Health won a Supreme Court case striking down abortion restrictions in Texas. The group has continued operating in the state in the face of an unprecedented ban that was allowed to go into effect almost a year before Roe was overturned. And like Jackson Women’s Health, Whole Woman’s Health has tried fighting the new ban in its state.
But in early July, the state Supreme Court dealt their case a blow. Legal proceedings are ongoing, but Hagstrom Miller said the state Supreme Court’s decision “sped up our timeline of trying to go to New Mexico.”
The organization, which also has clinics open in Maryland, Minnesota, Indiana and Virginia, where abortion is still legal, already provides abortions in New Mexico via telemedicine. They are now fundraising to open an in-person clinic, likely near the border with Texas, Hagstrom Miller said, to be more accessible to Texans.
“You can’t say for one second Whole Woman’s Health didn’t do everything we could to preserve access to safe abortion in Texas,” she said. “So, there’s some bitterness on our team, because people in Texas deserve the kind of care that we provide, and our staff deserve to continue to do this work that they love and that they’re trained to do. There’s grief and frustration.”
Concern for what happens to patients who can’t cross borders
These clinic leaders across Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are doing what they can to reorganize to continue to work with patients in their states. Independent providers and those associated with Planned Parenthood have been in touch with each other to coordinate the new infrastructure for abortion care in a fractured United States, according to Hagstrom Miller.
Even so, Marty said, between bans and closures, “It’s a tidal wave that is working its way further and further up the nation. There’s never going to be enough clinics this way.”
Moreover, the clinic leaders each told ABC News they worry for the patients who will get left behind.
“There are a lot of people who did not vote for these laws or these politicians,” Marty said. “People here are affected and can’t leave. We can’t forget about them.”
“Not everybody can travel,” Hagstrom Miller said. “This sort of heroic narrative, the arc of ‘we’re setting up somewhere else, we’re going to take care of people,’ right? A lot of people are going to fall through those cracks.”
This is especially concerning, the leaders said, for communities already facing barriers to health care, including people of color, people with lower income, the young and those in abusive relationships.
“It’s sad to know that there are women getting left behind,” Derzis said. “Hopefully, it’s time that women rise up in this country and demand their rights.”
ABC News’ Briana Stewart and Ely Brown contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department revealed in an early Monday morning court filing that federal investigators interviewed former President Donald Trump’s attorney Justin Clark two weeks ago in connection with Steve Bannon’s criminal contempt case.
Prosecutors say that Clark confirmed in the interview that at no point did Trump ever invoke executive privilege over Bannon’s testimony — and directly contradicted other claims made by Bannon’s defense team in their case.
They further suggest Bannon’s recent efforts in conjunction with Trump to offer to finally testify before the committee are no more than a stunt to try and make him more a sympathetic figure to the jury he’s set to face next week.
“All of the above-described circumstances suggest the Defendant’s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet his obligations but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability,” prosecutors say.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Hundreds of people marched from Robb Elementary School to Uvalde Town Square on Sunday to honor the victims and to hold elected officials accountable for the mass school shooting that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers.
Family members of the victims made impassioned speeches at the Unheard Voices March & Rally, demanding justice for their loved ones who were killed in the May 24 shooting.
“What I want, you can’t give me. I want my daughter back,” Kimberly Rubio, mother of Lexi Rubio, said. “We want answers. We seek justice. We demand change.”
One by one, victims’ family members came to the mic and announced the name of their loved one, holding posters with the child’s picture on them, according to ABC News San Antonio affiliate KSAT.
There were repeated chants of “vote them out,” referring to politicians who don’t support gun reform and who didn’t attend the rally.
People at the rally also expressed anger at law enforcement’s response to the shooting.
Uvalde police waited 77 minutes in the hallway outside the classroom where the suspect was before approaching him.
Pete Arredondo, the police chief for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD), resigned from his position on the Uvalde City Council, saying in his resignation letter that it was “in the best interest of the community to step down as a member of the City Council for District 3 to minimize further distractions.”
At the Unheard Voice March Sunday, community members called for Arredondo to step down from his position in the school district. The school district put him on administrative leave in June.
“You do not deserve to wear a badge,” said a loved one of 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza, who was killed in the mass shooting.
ABC News’ Izzy Alvarez and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.
Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)(NEW YORK) — Since the COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for children under age 5 last month, states have been able to pre-order doses directly from the federal government.
Roughly 300,000 children between ages six months and four years have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That is equivalent to about 1.5% of the roughly 19.5 million children in the United States who recently became eligible.
Despite the low number, states are continuing to order vaccines as they expect infection numbers to increase and confidence to build over time.
ABC News reached out to all 50 state health departments between June 21 and July 7 asking how many doses had been ordered for children under age 5 and received data from 41 of them.
Those states have ordered at least 3.09 million vaccine doses for the youngest age group to be distributed to providers, hospitals, vaccination centers and more, according to the results.
This number does not include retail pharmacies in the states who have pre-ordered doses through the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program.
“Having millions of doses out of the gate is incredibly helpful,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “It’s a good start. My gut feeling is that there’s going to be an initial rush, like when doses became available for other age groups, and then a little bit more of stable access.”
As of June 21, California — the state with the largest population — has ordered more than 400,000 doses of the vaccine, the state’s Department of Public Health told ABC News.
Of those doses, more than 221,000 doses are of the two-dose Moderna vaccine and 176,00 are of the three-dose Pfizer vaccine, the California DPH said.
The doses “can be administered at the more than 8,500 vaccine sites throughout the state, with additional doses becoming available in subsequent weeks,” the DPH said in a statement.
Meanwhile the state with the smallest population, Wyoming, has ordered the fewest doses at 3,700 as of June 30, state health officials told ABC News.
The state’s health department there said 2,000 doses were of the Pfizer vaccine and 1,700 were of Moderna’s vaccine.
Brownstein said it’s incredibly important for young children to get vaccinated because they are also susceptible to severe effects of COVID-19.
“There’s always been this view that, for some reason, adults are the hardest hit with COVID-19,” he said. “And while that may be true proportionally, children also suffer severe consequences, sometimes deaths, even long COVID.”
He added, “Giving our kids that baseline protection through vaccines is incredibly important … especially as we head into the fall.”
Florida is the only state in the U.S. that didn’t preorder any COVID-19 vaccines for young children, federal officials told ABC News last month.
“The Florida Department of Health has made it clear to the federal government that states do not need to be involved in the convoluted vaccine distribution process, especially when the federal government has a track record of developing inconsistent and unsustainable COVID-19 policies,” a spokesperson for the department told ABC News in a statement.
Brownstein said he fears this will lead to disadvantaged groups that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 also having disproportionate access to vaccines.
“When states are administering vaccines, they can optimize vaccination sites, making sure they’re available to lower income families, minority families,” he said. “In the absence of that, higher income families will always be able to find time off to get off work and find vaccines for their kids. Ultimately what will happen is a lack of vaccine equity.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — “Keep making your point. It’s critically important,” President Joe Biden said as for his message to the thousands of abortion-rights activists who gathered outside the White House on Saturday.
President Joe Biden said Sunday he was looking into declaring a public health emergency in support of abortion access across the country after Roe v. Wade was overturned last month.
“That’s something I’m asking the medical people in the administration to look at, whether I have the authority to do that and what impact that would have,” Biden told reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, while quickly taking questions during a bike ride near his home.
A public health emergency regarding abortion has been supported by members of Biden’s own party as well as abortion rights advocates.
The Women’s March, which helped organize a “Summer of Rage” in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe — which was widely praised by conservatives — has argued such a move would allow the administration to “utilize additional flexibilities, deploy resources where necessary, and act with the urgency that this moment requires.”
Broadly speaking, a public health emergency is made in the cases of disease outbreak or other health crises and unlocks certain government powers and funding sources.
Biden told reporters on Sunday he recognized he had limited executive powers to go further in supporting abortion access, saying, “I don’t have the authority” to reinstate Roe. He reiterated that he wanted Congress to pass a federal law codifying Roe after the Supreme Court reversed the landmark 1973 ruling and said there was no constitutional guarantee to an abortion.
As for his message to the thousands of people who gathered outside the White House on Saturday, pressuring him to do more to protect abortion rights, he said, “Keep protesting. Keep making your point. It’s critically important.”
“We can do a lot of things to accommodate the rights of women. In the meantime, fundamentally, the only way to change this is to have a national law that reinstates Roe v Wade,” he said.
The prospects of that are dim in the narrowly divided Senate, where Democrats do not have enough votes to either overcome a Republican filibuster on the issue or approve an exception to the filibuster rule, which is opposed by moderates Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Biden on Friday signed an executive order aimed at supporting access to abortion despite efforts in dozens of states to outlaw or severely restrict it.
Speaking from the White House alongside Vice President Kamala Harris and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Biden urged women, specifically, to practice their “political power” by voting in November, saying it was the “fastest way” to reverse the high court’s ruling by giving congressional Democrats the majorities they need to the codify Roe.
In the weeks since a five-justice majority on the court rejected Roe — which has long been a goal of Republicans and conservatives who oppose abortion — Biden has faced criticism from other Democrats and from progressives who say he should be acting more aggressively.
“I want President Biden to do absolutely everything in his power to protect access to abortion in America—let’s really push the envelope to protect women in this country, and let’s do it now,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health Education and Labor, told ABC News in a written statement last month, adding that she understood that there were limits to his authority.
Biden’s executive order largely finalized what had already been announced by his administration, including instructions to the Justice Department to make sure women can travel out-of-state for abortion care.
The order addressed the elevated risks for patients, providers and clinics by focusing on protecting mobile clinics that have been deployed to state borders to offer care for out-of-state patients.
Biden’s action, the White House said, also directed Attorney General Merrick Garland and the White House counsel to convene volunteer lawyers and organizations to “encourage robust legal representation of patients, providers, and third parties lawfully seeking or offering reproductive health care services throughout the country.”
Biden has said he’ll provide leave for federal workers traveling for medical care, which could set an example for private companies to do the same.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
