Psaki on Abortion Rights: ‘We Will Defend it With Every Tool We Have’

"We will defend it with every tool we have."

Ahead of the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Psaki says the Biden administration will fight for reproductive rights.

It’s no exaggeration to say American women are staring down the barrel of the biggest attack on their rights in generations. As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the future of women’s rights has not been this imperiled since before the court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

Saturday marks the 49th anniversary of that decision, which established a constitutional right to abortion up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy — and beyond, if the health of the mother is in danger. The Mississippi Legislature is trying to overturn Roe, by reducing the period to 15 weeks, with no exceptions for a mother’s life or health. Other states are seeking to restrict the period even more — or eliminate it entirely.

The court could uphold the Mississippi law or go further, by opening the door to state laws that are de facto prohibitions on abortion. In either case, it would be overturning a landmark decision, undermining a fundamental right and severely eroding public trust in the courts.

A decision is still months away, but based on the court’s ideological politics, it seems likely that there are three votes for Mississippi and three votes for Roe. The three others — John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh — need to hear loudly and clearly that rolling back the firmly established and widely supported legal protections that have been the law of the land since Roe would be a historically colossal mistake, one that would forever tarnish the reputation of the Roberts court.

About 70 percent of Americans have no recollection of life before Roe. But for those of us who do, we remember other truths from that time: Women were almost universally denied equal opportunities in their careers and faced widespread discrimination. As a result, they were almost entirely absent from leadership positions in the public and private sectors.

So much has changed since then for the better, and while there is still much more to be done, Roe remains an essential element of a woman’s right to control her own future. Overturning Roe would roll back more than abortion rights. It would roll back two generations of progress toward equal rights.

Reproductive rights are already facing overly severe restrictions. In the past decade, Republican state legislatures have passed a steady stream of laws making it harder for people to exercise their reproductive rights. As a result, 2 in 5 women of childbearing age now live in a county without a single abortion provider. And by the end of 2022, that number could be far higher.

Last year alone, 108 restrictions on abortion were passed in 19 states, including a law in Texas that subjects abortion providers to civil lawsuits. In fact, even driving a friend or a family member to an abortion clinic in Texas could result in legal jeopardy.

Fundamental American and human rights should never be bound by geography, existing in one state but not another. They belong to all of us. That’s what makes them rights. What’s true of the right to free speech and the right to practice one’s religion must also be true for reproductive rights.