Biden to sign executive order to help cover costs for women traveling

U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday to help cover costs for women traveling to receive abortions.

Biden directed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to encourage states to write rules so their state Medicaid plans could cover certain costs for women traveling to receive abortions in states where the procedure remains legal.

The president’s executive order also directs Becerra to ensure health-care providers do not discriminate against women on the basis of pregnancy. HHS will collect more data on the impact that abortion bans have on maternal health.

But groups such as Planned Parenthood have called on the Biden administration to use all the emergency powers at its disposal to protect access to abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights has specifically called on HHS to use an emergency health law, called the PREP Act, to enable health-care providers in states where abortion remains legal to prescribe and dispense mifepristone for early abortions for women in states with bans.

The Biden administration has considered declaring a public health emergency to protect access to the abortion pill, but it worries physicians could potentially face prosecution in states that have banned the procedure, a senior administration official said.

The White House hasn’t used those powers yet because officials worry that it might not be enough to protect physicians and women in the end, the senior administration official said.

The law gives the Health and Human Services secretary the authority to extend legal protections to anyone who manufactures or administers a drug that’s needed to respond to a public health emergency. It was widely used in March 2020 to protect Covid-19 vaccine makers, test manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer that were making therapeutic drugs like the antiviral Paxlovid. It also protected physicians administering the shots and tests.

Under that authority, HHS Secretary Becerra could designate the abortion pill, mifepristone, as a drug needed to prevent a health emergency caused by reduced abortion access. This would, in theory, preempt state abortion bans and make mifepristone available to women in those states, opening an avenue to early pregnancy abortions.

“One of the concerns we have about invoking the PREP Act is that we’re concerned that we might not be able to protect women and doctors from liability, including criminalization. So that’s why we haven’t yet taken that action,” the senior administration told reporters on a call.

Legal experts have said Republican state officials would immediately sue the administration for using the PREP Act…