President Joe Biden promised a “whole-of-government” response to Texas’s new abortion law and the Supreme Court’s decision not to block it, but Democrats are poised to be disappointed with the results.

Biden and the federal government are relatively hamstrung when it comes to abortion access. The president’s reliance on Congress to act will likely energize both Democrats and Republicans before the 2022 midterm elections.

TRUMP HANGS OVER BIDEN’S WHITE HOUSE MEETING WITH UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY

Biden is largely powerless to take unilateral action regarding legal abortion, according to reproductive, family, and sexuality issues legal scholar Mary Ziegler.

“There is very little Biden can do on his own, beyond weighing in as an amicus about how the [Supreme] Court should react,” the Florida State University professor told the Washington Examiner. “Otherwise, he needs Congress to do something like passing the Women’s Health Protection Act. But even then, the Supreme Court could strike down a federal law if it chose.”

However, Biden has an ally in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The pair endorse codifying the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide and enshrined a constitutional right to the procedure without undue government interference.

Pelosi pledged Thursday to vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act after Sept. 20 when lawmakers return to Washington, D.C. That proposal prohibits states from rolling out what critics describe as burdensome abortion requirements or restrictions. The White House is still considering the measure, press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Thursday.

But Biden and Pelosi’s problem is Senate Republicans will likely filibuster the Women’s Health Protection Act given the chamber’s 50-50 composition, and at least one Democratic member of the chamber, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, could vote against it.

“All of this will put far more pressure on the issue of expanding or reforming the [Supreme] Court,” Ziegler added.

She is right. Liberal activist group MoveOn tried to mobilize its supporters in a Thursday email by urging Biden to appoint new justices to “rebalance” the Supreme Court “against the stolen seats and unprecedented right-wing power grabs.”

“Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced the Judiciary Act of 2021 to do just that – and more Democrats need to sign on to this legislation,” they said.

Biden’s 30-person Supreme Court commission is due to report its nonbinding reform recommendations by Oct. 6.

“The president’s view on the expansion of courts has not changed,” Psaki said Thursday, alluding to Biden’s opposition to packing the Supreme Court. The bench currently has six justices nominated by Republican presidents and three by Democratic counterparts.

The coronavirus pandemic overshadowed abortion access during last year’s presidential cycle. But it was temporarily thrust into the political spotlight when former President Donald Trump and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rammed through now-Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation before Democrats seized control of the Senate after the Jan. 5 Georgia runoffs.

Abortion is a wedge issue Democrat and Republican voters care about. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted last week found two-thirds of respondents believe abortion is “important” to them. Roughly 70% of Democrats and Republicans said it was “important,” compared to two-fifths of self-identified independents.

One Democratic strategist, for instance, vented her frustration with the Texas law and the Supreme Court: “I tried a few ways to express myself but couldn’t do it without excessive profanity.”

But Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, cited polling that “Americans reject pro-abortion extremism.”

“The Supreme Court’s ruling allows Texas to protect unborn babies with beating hearts while litigation continues,” she said.

Biden, a Catholic, has been criticized for his past anti-abortion positions and rhetoric. He eventually reversed his Hyde Amendment stance during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. That measure prevented abortions from being federally funded unless the procedure saved the mother’s life or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

But Biden’s Hyde Amendment flip-flop prompted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, then a primary rival, to stop slamming his abortion record.

“Two years after Roe v. Wade was decided, Sen. Biden said this, and I quote: ‘I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body,'” Sanders said in March 2020.

Biden sounded different Thursday when he ripped the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision declining the emergency appeal of Texas abortion providers and advocates to stymie the law’s implementation.

The Texas law, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, bars abortions after six weeks of pregnancy when the medical professional performing the procedure can detect a heartbeat. The measure still applies if the child was conceived through rape or incest, though there are medical exceptions. It also incentivizes private citizens to file lawsuits against anyone in breach of its provisions with $10,000 in “statutory damages.”

“By allowing a law to go into effect that empowers private citizens in Texas to sue healthcare providers, family members supporting a woman exercising her right to choose after six weeks, or even a friend who drives her to a hospital or clinic, it unleashes unconstitutional chaos and empowers self-anointed enforcers to have devastating impacts,” Biden said.

But the Supreme Court was careful not to decide the Texas law’s constitutionality in its majority opinion. That leaves open the possibility of future challenges as the bench prepares to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case concerning Mississippi’s 15-week abortion measure and the constitutionality of pre-viability abortion limits.

In the meantime, Biden ordered the White House Gender Policy Council and his in-house legal team Thursday to explore whether the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice can intervene.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“They are going to be coordinating all of the leverage and all of the efforts and policy options across the government,” Psaki said Thursday. “The president wants them to act as quickly as possible, so it’s not a means of 100 days, and then we’ll get a report. It’s let’s see what our options are, and let’s act on them.”

Original Location: Biden could be setting Democrats up for disappointment on abortion amid Texas furor

Washington Examiner Videos