The Biden administration is evaluating the possibility of declaring a public-health emergency on abortion, Department of Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra said Monday.
“There are discussions on a wide range of measures … that we can take to try to protect people’s rights,” Becerra reportedly told Axios. “There are certain criteria that you look for to be able to declare a public-health emergency. That’s typically done by scientists and those that are professionals in those fields who will tell us whether we are in a state of emergency and based on that, I have the ability to make a declaration.”
He said there has not been a “full assessment” on the issue but there is an “evaluation” being done.
“We are constantly exploring additional actions we can take to protect and expand access to reproductive health care, including abortion care, and are prioritizing the actions that can give us the highest impact and most durable solutions,” an HHS spokesperson told the outlet.
A declaration could make it easier for patients to get abortion medication or to travel out-of-state to have an abortion.
More than 80 House Democrats sent a letter to President Biden in July urging him to declare a public-health emergency after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The lawmakers said the declaration would enable the administration to assist states that allow abortion and have been inundated by patients from states where abortion is limited or banned, “causing unprecedented strain on limited resources and delaying care for residents.” They suggested a public health declaration would allow the administration to deploy Public Health Services Corps teams and to “accelerate access to new medications authorized for abortion.”
However, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council said at the time that while a declaration was “definitely not off the table” it did not “seem like a great option.”
“When we looked at the public health emergency, we learned a couple things,” council director Jen Klein said during a news briefing. “One is that it doesn’t free very many resources. It’s what’s in the public health emergency fund, and there’s very little money — tens of thousands of dollars in it. So that didn’t seem like a great option. And it also doesn’t release a significant amount of legal authority. And so that’s why we haven’t taken that action yet.”
While HHS has the authority to declare a public-health emergency if the secretary finds there is a “disease or disorder that presents a public health emergency,” any declaration would be likely to face legal challenges.