White House chief of staff Ron Klain said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the Biden administration would use “legal remedies to protect women who are seeking to exercise their constitutional rights” of getting an abortion in Texas.
Anchor Dana Bash said, “I have to ask about the Supreme Court declining to block a Texas law, which bans all abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and effectively deputizes private citizens to enforce it. I know the president is directing federal agencies to look into ways to address this, but this is the law of the land right now. There are women who are scared and don’t know what to do in Texas. You know the law better than most people I know in this country. Is the reality that there isn’t a whole lot the administration can do right now to change things in Texas?”
Klain said, “Dana, I hope that’s not the reality. We have the best lawyers at the Justice Department looking for legal remedies to protect women who are seeking to exercise their constitutional rights. We have the team at HHS looking at what means we can do to try to get women the healthcare services they need in the face of this Texas law. And we have the gender policy counsel here at the White House, the first time a president’s ever had a policy counsel devoted to gender issues coordinating all this work to bring options forward for the president and the vice president.”
Bash said, “So you think it’s possible that you can do something at the federal level?”
Klain said, “We are going to find ways if they’re at all possible, and I think they are possible, we are going to find ways to make a difference for the women of Texas to try to protect their constitutional rights, yes.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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