WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Organization for Women (NOW) joins a diverse coalition of organizations to applaud President Biden for taking the first steps to undo the harms of the previous administration’s dangerous and restrictive policies that robbed countless people of the right to control their own bodies and access sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion.
Rescinding the dangerous global gag rule; taking steps to strengthen Medicaid; initiating an open enrollment period; disavowing the Trump administration’s abhorrent anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ Geneva Consensus Declaration, restoring funding to UNFPA for their critical reproductive and maternal health work around the world; and beginning the important process of reviewing the harmful domestic gag rule for the Title X program are important and impactful first steps.
“NOW applauds President Biden’s executive actions that will undo Trump Administration policies that imperiled women’s health. The global gag rule was a sneak attack on the Constitution, which the Supreme Court has ruled protects abortion rights,” said Christian F. Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). “This is a direct attack on Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide urgently needed reproductive healthcare to women, particularly the uninsured and low-income people who are most at risk. After four years of Trump-induced darkness, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lifting the clouds and lighting the way forward.”
As the Biden-Harris Administration works to rebuild from the devastation of the pandemic, the economic crisis, and centuries of systemic racism, it is important to state that sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice cannot be an afterthought.
For women, Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, LGBTQ+ people, young people, and people with low incomes, bodily autonomy and access to health care is the foundation of a better future. It’s how they build families, careers, and communities.
That’s why the Biden-Harris Administration and a pro-reproductive health care majority in Congress must implement the Blueprint for Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice, a comprehensive and proactive policy agenda endorsed by more than 100 bold, progressive organizations.
The Repro Blueprint includes First Priorities, a detailed punch list of executive actions to advance sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice for people in the U.S. and around the world. The Biden-Harris Administration has taken action on several of the First Priorities.
The Repro Blueprint is co-convened by In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.