Biden pushes for new voting rights to fight abortion law

US President calls for exception to Senate voting rules after ‘outrageous’ Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v Wade.

Abortion rights demonstrators march to the houses of US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Picture: Stefani Reynolds/AFP

US President Biden has called for an exception to Senate voting rules to allow Democrats to pass an abortion rights law, after what he described as the “outrageous” Supreme Court ruling last week to overturn Roe v Wade.

With the White House scrambling to respond to the incendiary ruling, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the US after almost 50 years, Biden urged Democrats in Congress on Thursday to codify abortion rights in law.

To sidestep his party’s razor-thin majority in the Senate, he urged his party to allow an “exception to the filibuster” rule, enabling Democrats to pass legislation without Republican support.

The Senate is tied 50-50, with Kamala Harris, the vice-president, holding a casting vote. The filibuster requires 60 votes to pass big legislation. Getting ten Republicans to support codifying abortion rights appears impossible, with most united in support of the court’s decision to hand power on the issue back to the states, of which at least 26 are set to ban or severely limit abortion.

US President Joe Biden. Picture: Denis Doyle/Getty Images

At the NATO summit in Madrid Biden denounced the ruling, which he said was “destabilising” the US. “America is better positioned to lead the world than we ever have been,” he said. “But one thing that has been destabilising is the outrageous behaviour of the Supreme Court of the United States in overruling not only Roe v Wade, but essentially challenging the right to privacy.”

The call for the filibuster exception from Biden, who was opposed to scrapping it as a senator, sets up another battle with conservative Democrats. Joe Manchin, a senator for West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have twice blocked recent moves to overturn the rule. Their opposition also stopped Biden from passing his $US1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan to invest in social care and fight climate change, as well as voting rights reform. However, both condemned the court’s ruling.

After the Roe decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday also threw out lower court rulings that invalidated three states’ anti-abortion laws.

THE TIMES