Eight Democratic governors electronically met with President Joe Biden on Friday to discuss their state-level efforts to maintain access to abortion care. In turn, the governors urged the president to take federal action.
After the Supreme Court overturned the historic Roe v. Wade ruling one week ago, leaving abortion legality up to the states, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that her state and “the other enlightened states” are now in a position to provide healthcare for women across the country.
‘Veterans hospitals, military sites, and other areas where the federal government controls the authorities that are antagonistic to women’s rights,’ Hochul pressed Biden on the possibility of offering abortion services on federal properties.
Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico, recommended utilizing her state’s Native American territory to offer abortion treatment; on Friday, Biden indicated he was open to the idea.
One of the things I’m seeing is that we are investigating, starting to investigate, or are now investigating all of the options, including the sovereign nation issue, Biden added.
But the president also admitted his hands were tied in many ways – as not every Democratic senator would sign onto a plan to skirt the filibuster to codify federal abortion rights.
‘We don’t have the votes in the Senate to change the filibuster,’ Biden relented.
All 50 Democratic senators would have to sign-on to a filibuster change and moderate Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have already signaled they were against it.
At the top of the meeting, Biden reiterated that he do what he could as president to ensure women wouldn’t be punished for traveling from red states to blue states to get an abortion – but he feared they would still get targeted.
‘I think people are going to be shocked when the first state, the first state that tries to arrest a woman for crossing a state line to get health services,’ the president said.
‘And I don’t think people believe that’s going to happen,’ he continued. ‘But it’s going to happen and it’s going to telegraph to the whole country that this is a gigantic deal that does beyond – it effects all your basic rights.’
Biden said he had talked to Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier in the day.
‘We’re going to do everything within the power of the federal government to make sure that any attempt to obstruct anything from travel to access to medicine does not occur,’ Biden said.
Beyond Hochul and Lujan Grisham, governors who participated included North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Connecticut’s Ned Lamont, Colorado’s Jared Polis, Illinois’ J. B. Pritzker, Washington’s Jay Inslee, Oregon’s Kate Brown and Rhode Island’s Daniel McKee.
As a southern governor, Cooper said North Carolina is already seeing an influx of patients coming from surrounding states with tighter restrictions.
‘This Democratic governor is going to hold the line,’ Cooper told Biden.
Cooper said that in North Carolina enough Democratic legislators needed to be elected to ‘sustain my vetoes,’ as both houses are controlled by Republicans.
‘Right now governors really are the last line of defense and they’re also the first change of progress,’ Cooper said. ‘Especially with this Supreme Court on such a destructive path.’