The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday announced a “reproductive rights task force” that aims “to identify ways to protect access to reproductive health care” after the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade that legalized abortions nationwide.
Since the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling on June 24 to reverse the Roe v. Wade ruling, 15 states have moved to ban or severely restrict abortions.
The task force announcement formalizes an already “existing working group and efforts by the Department over the last several months,” a press release states.
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta will chair the task force that includes staff and representatives from various divisions within the Justice Department, including the civil division, U.S. attorneys’ offices, the civil rights division, the Office of Legal Counsel, the Office of Access to Justice, and the Office of the Solicitor General.
“The Court abandoned 50 years of precedent and took away the constitutional right to abortion, preventing women all over the country from being able to make critical decisions about our bodies, our health, and our futures,” Gupta said in a statement. “The Justice Department is committed to protecting access to reproductive services.”
The task force will “monitor and evaluate” state and local legislation that threatens to “infringe on federal legal protections” related to reproductive healthcare, the department said. It will also monitor laws that seek to ban Mifepristone, one of the two drugs often used to end an early-stage pregnancy, because of disagreements with the Food and Drug Administration’s “expert judgment about its safety and efficacy,” the department said.
Some Republican-led states, including Texas, have moved to ban the practice of abortion pills, such as blocking them from being shipped or prescribed during telehealth visits.
The task force will also monitor any laws that “impair women’s ability” to seek an abortion in states where the procedure is legal.
The agency is also charged with “providing technical assistance” to congressional lawmakers related to the codification of abortion access into law.
Additionally, the new task force will work on a provision in Biden’s July 8 executive order to encourage private attorneys and law firms to provide pro bono services to “patients, providers and third parties lawfully seeking reproductive health services throughout the country.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the new Justice Department task force was “a meaningful step in providing a framework for enforcing federal protection for those helping patients navigate access to abortion.”
Anti-abortion groups pushed back against the Justice Department’s task force.
“It can’t override federalism. It can’t override the constitution,” said Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel at Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion law firm and advocacy group. “It’s basically make-work.”
Kristi Hamrick, a spokesperson for Students For Life of America, characterized the task force as a “misuse of our federal resources to prioritize abortion.”