Biden cannot easily make Roe v. Wade federal law, but he could still make it easier to get an abortion
President Joe Biden promised during his State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, that he would make the right to get an abortion a federal law.
“If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again,” Biden said.
If Biden meant simply that he would sign a bill enshrining the right to an abortion, then he can keep his promise. But, as he noted, such a bill is unlikely to be enacted by this current Congress, in which the House majority is Republican. Moreover, if Biden expected such a law to be upheld by this Supreme Court, or even a different set of justices, he could be seriously disappointed.
On the other hand, there is much that Biden’s administration and Congress can do to offset the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which removed federal constitutional protection for the right to get an abortion and sent the regulation of abortion back to the states.
As experts on constitutional law and reproductive health and justice, we are sorting out just what the federal government can do to protect access to abortion.