On Friday, President Joe Biden announced during a press conference moves he plans to take to promote access to abortion in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe and returning to the states the right to establish abortion policy. He then signed an executive order aimed at fighting abortion restrictions in states that his administration deems illegal.
"In a number of these states," Biden said, "the laws are so extreme they have raised the threat of criminal penalties for doctors and healthcare providers. They're so extreme that many don't allow for exceptions, even for rape or incest."
Carol Tobias of National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) points out the president not only described those state laws as extreme, but also strongly stated that pro-lifers – including those in elected office – are "extremists" for restricting abortion. But in fact, says Tobias, the extremists are those seeking no limits on abortion at all.
"What Joe Biden is not acknowledging or not willing to say is that extremism is when you think it is okay to kill those children up to the moment of birth or at any time during pregnancy and use tax dollars to pay for it," the pro-life leader tells AFN.
Tobias also argues that some of Biden's statements during the press conference were simply not true – for example, implying that the pro-life movement wants to penalize women.
"He is trying to scare women by saying that they're not going to be treated for ectopic pregnancies or serious problems that arise during a pregnancy," Tobias describes. "They are doing everything they can to make women look at an unborn child as the enemy."
Despite its rhetoric, nothing the Biden administration does, says NRLC, is going to help women and their unborn children. "Pro-abortion efforts by this administration and its abortion-lobby allies will only harm women and kill more children," Tobias adds.
Scare tactics unmistakable
Indeed, the message coming out of the abortion lobby has been that overturning Roe would impact the ability of medical professionals to treat high-risk or ectopic pregnancies. AFN spoke with Dr. Ingrid Skop of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an expert on problem pregnancies who disputes that claim.
"It's frustrating because I think the intent is to scare women and … to scare doctors," Skop offers. "I'm a doctor in Texas [and] we've been dealing with restrictions for several months now. I have not found … any situation where I needed to perform a procedure to save a mother's life that I have not been able to do that."
According to Skop, it's factually inaccurate to represent pro-life laws as hindrances to providing treatment.
"If the [ectopic] pregnancy continues, usually this is in the fallopian tube, the tube can rupture [and] the woman can have catastrophic bleeding," she explains. "This is a common cause of a maternal death – but no legislation prevents a doctor from performing the needed treatment for an ectopic."
In fact, Skop has posted a fact sheet that challenges the disinformation published by left-wing media – and offers pro-life information any woman can live by.
Quick! Change the subject!
Another pro-life group says President Biden and other Democrats are using the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade to get out the vote this November because of how poorly other issues are going for him and his party.
Noah Brandt is director of government affairs for the pro-life group Live Action. "Things are going extremely badly politically [so] I think they think it's in their interest to change the topic of conversation away from record high gas prices and sky-high inflation to anything," he says.
It's clear Biden won't be budging from his policies and therefore has decided to use his office to urge women and men upset with the Supreme Court to vote.
"We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House to codify Roe as federal law," Biden said last Friday during a press conference at the White House. "Your vote can make that a reality. I know it's frustrating and [the court's decision] made a lot of people very angry, but the truth is, women of America can determine the outcome of this issue."
Brandt argues abortion isn't a winning issue for Democrats.
"Democrats are the party of extreme death when it comes to abortion – and most Americans are not with them," Brandt tells AFN. "This should embolden pro-life leaders and legislators at the state and federal levels to pass pro-life protections to ensure that our base is energized to vote, and to ensure that these victories are locked in and that children are safe."
Noah Brandt's comments added after story was originally posted.
