WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — In a memo released Tuesday, the Biden administration announced it will provide more than $6 million worth of grants for reproductive care. This comes as the nation marks 100 days since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The new grants are for programs including Research-to-Practice, Teen Pregnancy Prevention and Title X.
Following the announcement, President Joe Biden met with the Reproductive Rights Task Force, which was established in July after Roe v. Wade was overturned. It's the second public meeting the task force has held since its inception.
"I signed two executive orders and my administration has taken a number of actions that this task force is charged to carry out," the president said.
"The task force itself doesn't create new federal power," explained University of Minnesota law professor Jill Hasday. "It's a way of coordinating existing federal power and implementing it more effectively."
Hasday says since Roe v. Wade was overturned, several legal conflicts have come up nationwide, which the task force is tracking.
"There has been an extraordinary number of conflicts over what constitutes an abortion in a state that has prohibited an abortion," she said. "Probably the most dramatic illustration of this is women who have been in the process of miscarrying and the hospital refuses to give those women immediate treatment out of fear that some state prosecutor would characterize that as an abortion."
Funding for the grants will be provided through the Department of Health and Human Services. In Tuesday's meeting, Biden did not talk about the newly allocated grant money but he emphasized support for the Title X program, which provides affordable birth control and reproductive health care to low-income Americans. Several OBGYN doctors also spoke about their experiences since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
"The laws of my state directly violate the medical expertise I gained through years of training," a Georgia-based OBGYN said.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona also shared a message to colleges and universities after the University of Idaho stopped providing "standard birth control."
"Today my department is issuing a new resource to remind schools of their obligation under Title IX," Cardona said.
Title IX requires institutions to protect students from discrimination based on pregnancy, including pregnancy termination.
"I respect everyone's view on this — personal decisions they make — but my Lord, we're talking about contraception here. It shouldn't be controversial," Biden said.
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