WASHINGTON – Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Chair of the Abortion Rights and Access Task Force of the Pro-Choice Caucus, released the following statement on President Biden’s Executive Orders on reproductive healthcare:

“Today’s executive orders are a welcome and long overdue first step in undoing the years of policy violence exacted by the Trump-Pence administration. By rescinding the dangerous global gag rule and taking the first step to rescind harmful Trump era changes to the Title X program, the Biden Administration is expanding access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare for millions of people here in the United States and around the world.  

“However, after four years of Donald Trump and decades of harmful anti-reproductive justice policies on the federal and state level, marginalized communities deserve more than rescinding Trump’s racist and sexist policies. The Biden-Harris administration must go further to meet this moment by making good on their promise to end the Hyde amendment and other harmful restrictions on abortion care access and commit to truly advancing reproductive justice in our nation. 

“Barriers to abortion care are racial and economic justice issues, and must be treated as such. For too long, Black, Brown, indigenous, immigrant, young people, LGBTQ, and low-income people been denied access to healthcare justice and abortion care based on their age, source of insurance, zip code, and income. In this moment of reckoning on racial injustice, I call on the Biden-Harris administration to join us in the fight to bring an end to these racist abortion coverage bans once and for all by sending Congress a budget without Hyde and any other coverage bans. 

“I look forward to working with the Biden-Harris administration and my Congressional colleagues to legislate racial and reproductive justice and advance meaningful policies that affirm that abortion care is health care and a fundamental right.”

As Chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus’s Abortion Rights and Access Task Force, Congresswoman Pressley has fought tirelessly to protect comprehensive reproductive health care for all, including abortion care.

Over the course of her first term serving in Congress, Congresswoman Pressley has filed amendments every year to repeal Hyde from annual Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies appropriations bills and in July published a Medium post on the importance of doing so.

In May, she led more than 155 Members of Congress in calling on House Democratic leadership to ensure that any future COVID-19 relief packages rejected Republican efforts to use the public health crisis to diminish abortion access.

In May 2019, she led more than 100 colleagues in introducing H.Con.Res.40, a resolution reaffirming the House of Representative’s support for Roe v. Wade. In June 2019, Rep. Pressley introduced H.R. 3296, the Affordability is Access Act, to make oral contraception available without a prescription.

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