The Biden administration is looking at ways to help women who seek an abortion — including possible access across state lines to places where it’s legal, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Sunday.
In an interview on NBC News’ "Meet The Press," Becerra said President Joe Biden has characterized the issue as a priority.
"The President's first announcement said he was tasking us at HSS with taking on a No. [1] issue," he said. "He had asked us to seek as aggressive a strategy as we can ... we do intend to respect the law.
"We have to heed the words of the Supreme Court," he said, adding: "We'll continue to find every means possible to make sure women have the care they need, including abortion care."
And that could mean helping women get to a state where the procedure is legal.
"We are exploring opportunities to work with others," he said. "If a woman trying [to] access that care that she needs we'll be [supportive] of that. We are one of those partners.
"We have to make sure that we have the resources to do it and authorities allow us to do it,” he said.
He seemed to dismiss a suggestion by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., that the government build abortion clinics on federal land, saying it could prove "difficult."
"I think we're continuing to explore everything that's out there," he said. "The difficulty is that simply because it's an idea doesn't mean it can go out into practice.
"And so what we want to make sure is we can put things out into practice because you have people who are right now in need of abortion care services," he said.
And he added: "We want to make sure that medication abortion, which is currently available in America, continues to be such that it can be accessed by those who need it most."
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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