President Joe Biden signs an executive order on abortion access during an event in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Friday. — AP Photo/Evan Vucci
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday to protect access to abortion as he faced mounting pressure from fellow Democrats to be more forceful on the subject after the Supreme Court ended a constitutional right to the procedure two weeks ago.
The actions he outlined are intended to mitigate some potential penalties women seeking abortion may face after the ruling but are limited in their ability to safeguard access to abortion nationwide.
Biden acknowledged the limitations facing his office, saying it would require an act of Congress to restore access to abortion in the more than a dozen states where strict limits or total bans have gone into effect in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling. About a dozen more states are set to impose additional restrictions in the coming weeks and months.
“The fastest way to restore Roe is to pass a national law,” Biden said. ““The challenge is go out and vote. For God’s sake there is an election in November. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote!”
Biden formalized instructions to the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to push back on efforts to limit the ability of women to access federally approved abortion medication or to travel across state lines to access clinical abortion services. He was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, HHS secretary Xavier Becerra and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in the Roosevelt Room as he signed the order.
His executive order also directs agencies to work to educate medical providers and insurers about how and when they are required to share privileged patient information with authorities — an effort to protect women who seek or utilize abortion services. He is also asking the Federal Trade Commission to take steps to protect the privacy of those seeking information about reproductive care online and establish an interagency task force to coordinate federal efforts to safeguard access to abortion.
Biden is also directing his staff to convene volunteer lawyers to provide women and providers with pro bono legal assistance to help them navigate new state restrictions after the Supreme Court ruling.
The order, after the high court’s June 24 ruling that ended the nationwide right to abortion and left it to states to determine whether or how to allow the procedure, comes as Biden has faced criticism from some in his own party for not acting with more urgency to protect women’s access to abortion. The decision in the case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
Since the decision, Biden has stressed that his ability to protect abortion rights by executive action is limited without congressional action, and stressed that Democrats do not have the votes in the current Congress to do so.
“We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House to codify Roe,” he said. “Your vote can make that a reality.”
He predicted that women would turn out in “record numbers” in frustration over the court’s decision, and said he expected “millions and millions of men will be taking up the fight beside them.”
On Friday, he repeated his sharp criticism of the Supreme Court’s reasoning in striking down what had been a half-century constitutional right to abortion.
“Let’s be clear about something from the very start, this was not a decision driven by the Constitution,” Biden said, accusing the court’s majority of “playing fast and loose with the facts.”
“Ultimately, Congress is going to have to act to codify Roe into federal law,” Biden said last week during a virtual meeting with Democratic governors.
The tasking to the Justice Department and HHS pushes the agencies to fight in court to protect women, but it conveys no guarantees that the judicial system will take their side against potential prosecution by states that have moved to outlaw abortion.
“President Biden has made clear that the only way to secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe as federal law,” the White House said. “Until then, he has committed to doing everything in his power to defend reproductive rights and protect access to safe and legal abortion.”
NARAL Pro-Choice America president Mini Timmaraju called Biden’s order “an important first step in restoring the rights taken from millions of Americans by the Supreme Court.”
But Lawrence Gostin, who runs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health at Georgetown Law, described Biden’s plans as “underwhelming.”
“There’s nothing that I saw that would affect the lives of ordinary poor women living in red states,” he said.
Gostin encouraged Biden to take a more forceful approach toward ensuring access to medication abortion across the country and said Medicaid should consider covering transportation to other states for the purposes of getting abortions.
Gostin said, “We basically have two Americas.” There’s one where people have access to a full range of healthcare, and “another where citizens don’t have the same rights to the safe and effective treatments as the rest of the country.”
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the AP that the agency was looking at how Medicaid could cover travel for abortions, along with a range of other proposals, but acknowledged that “Medicaid’s coverage of abortion is extremely limited.”
Biden’s move was the latest scramble to protect the data privacy of those contemplating or seeking abortion, as regulators and lawmakers reckon with the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling.
The decision by the court is expected to make abortion illegal in over a dozen states and severely restricted in others. Privacy experts say that could make women vulnerable because their personal data could be used to surveil pregnancies and shared with police or sold to vigilantes. Online searches, location data, text messages and emails, and even apps that track periods could be used to prosecute people who seek an abortion — or medical care for a miscarriage — as well as those who assist them, experts say.
Privacy advocates are watching for possible new moves by law enforcement agencies in affected states — serving subpoenas, for example, on tech companies such as Google, Apple, Bing, Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp, services like Uber and Lyft, and internet service providers including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Comcast. Local prosecutors may go before sympathetic judges to obtain search warrants for users’ data.
Last month four Democratic lawmakers asked the FTC to investigate Apple and Google for allegedly deceiving millions of mobile phone users by enabling the collection and sale of their personal data to third parties.
Equity in education and improving school experiences for School District of Philadelphia students is what Sarah-Ashley Andrews and Chau Wing Lam are hoping to accomplish as new members of the Board of Education.
“I will be an advocate for the students,” Andrews said. “I want to make sure that they’re reaching the goals of achievement that they should be reaching and ensuring that they have the tools to do that.
“I want to do the best I can to work together with the board to hold people accountable and to make sure the students are getting the best education that they deserve,” she added.
Lam said she will be able to provide a unique perspective as a board member because of her background.
A native of Fuzhou, China, Lam lived briefly in Hong Kong before she immigrated to the U.S. She said she couldn’t speak English when she first came to the country.
“I remember being in grade school and not being able to read from a book that was passed around in the classroom,” Lam said. “It was such a painful experience that had nothing to do with me and what I had done, but more so who I was and how I arrived in that space.”
“As a board member, I want to ensure that students and families do not attribute failures that are out of their control to something they caused,” she added. “I also want to help provide education that allows students to live out their full potential.”
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney selected Andrews and Lam from a list of eight nominees recommended by the Educational Nominating Panel, the entity responsible for submitting names of qualified candidates to the mayor for selection for the Board of Education.
A total of 62 people had applied to fill the two vacancies on the nine-member board following the resignations of Angela McIver and Maria McColgan.
The Board of Education is the only one in Pennsylvania that is appointed rather than elected. The mayor also appoints the nominating panel.
“I welcome our new colleagues Sarah-Ashley Andrews and Chau Wing Lam, who bring diverse voices, valuable experience and a commitment to supporting children and families to the board,” board President Joyce Wilkerson said in a statement.
“They’ll be joining the board at a crucial moment for the school district, as we welcome a new superintendent who will be working to increase student achievement in alignment with our goals and guardrails,” she added.
Andrews, a 35-year-old native of North Philadelphia, graduated from W.B. Saul High School. She works for TAG Inspires, which provides therapeutic counseling. She previously worked as a social worker with the nonprofit public health agency Philadelphia Health Management Corporation.
After a friend died by suicide a decade ago, she founded Dare 2 Hope in 2013, which has educated more than 4,500 young people on suicide awareness and prevention. She also co-hosts the weekly “Black in Therapy” podcast, dedicated to “normalizing mental wellness in the Black community.”
She studied mass communications at Bloomsburg University and later enrolled at Lancaster Bible College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies with a minor in human services. She holds a master’s degree in counseling from Lincoln University.
Andrews said she is committed to helping students get the education opportunities they deserve.
“I’m a strong believer in education equity; I want to make sure that education is equitable across the city and just not in certain areas and neighborhoods,” Andrews said. “Every school should be safe and have an atmosphere where children are excited to learn and achieve.
“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that they are someone today,” she said. “I’m committed to helping Philadelphia’s students today to ensure a better life for them in their tomorrow.”
Lam, 38, is the director of operations for the Philadelphia Academy of School Leaders. S
Before she worked in the school district, Lam worked for the firm Public Financial Management, advising governments on management and budget practices. She started her career teaching English in middle school in Japan.
She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in social policy from Penn.
“My career has been dedicated to ensuring that all young people have pathways to success that do not depend on background or origin,” Lam said.
“I look forward to drawing from my experiences in public finance, policy, leadership development and change management,” she added. “I look forward to sharing my voice and perspective and to advocate on behalf of children across Philadelphia as if they were my own.”
The Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg. — AP Photo/Matt Rourke
HARRISBURG — Lawmakers overwhelmingly passed and Gov. Tom Wolf signed the main Pennsylvania state budget bill Friday, more than a week after it was due — a plan fattened by federal stimulus cash and unusually robust state tax collections.
Big winners were public schools, environmental programs and long-term care facilities, but the budget also will leave some $5 billion in the state’s rainy day fund, create a multibillion-dollar cushion for next year and cut the tax on corporate net income.
The Senate approved the bill 47-3 after the House passed it by a similar margin the prior evening.
“This is government, this is progress,” said Appropriations Chairperson Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, shortly before the vote.
“I’m proud that this budget makes a historic $1.8 billion increase in education funding — bringing the total investment my administration has made in education at all levels to more than $3.7 billion,” Wolf said on Twitter.
The $42.8 billion spending plan includes hundreds of millions to clean streams and renovate or repair parks and forest land, and new money for home repairs, flood control, sewer and water infrastructure, child care, additional state troopers, anti-gun violence efforts and mental health support.
K-12 education spending jumps by more than a half-billion dollars, and Pennsylvania’s 100 poorest districts are splitting an additional $225 million. There are also larger subsidies for early childhood education, special education and the state-owned Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
“We all made compromises,” said Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland. “None of us got what we wanted, but we all came to a good compromise.”
With strong majorities in both chambers, Republicans got a lot of what they wanted, including a 1% decrease in the corporate net income tax and a program to help counties run elections while prohibiting the type of outside financial support that was controversial during the 2020 election.
The state fund will be used to help counties register voters, prepare and administer elections and audit the results.
The budget includes more money for a property tax and rent rebate program for seniors and to help lower-income people afford the cost of heating.
A new $125 million “whole home repairs program” was started, offering grants of up to $50,000 for homeowners with household incomes at or below 80% of local median income. Some landlords will also qualify for forgivable loans. The money can be used to make homes habitable, make utilities more efficient or improve access for those with disabilities.
Ward called it the first functionally balanced budget in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s. In recent years, lawmakers have regularly relied on one-time infusions of cash and accounting tricks to “balance” the state budget, but the 2022-23 plan repays some $2 billion in budget-related borrowing while paying off a $42 million debt in the unemployment compensation trust fund.
The Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program, a state-run effort popular with Republicans that gives businesses tax breaks in return for donating to private school tuition, will rise by 45% to more than $400 million.
As part of the deal, Wolf has agreed to pull charter school regulations that had been approved in March.
Christian Street YMCA is in the area, but is not included in the historic district, because the building is too new.
— Tribune Photo/Abdul Sulayman
Linda Evans, a longtime resident of Christian Street/Black Doctors Row, advocated for the historic district to preserve it. — Tribune Photo/Abdul R. Sulayman
The Philadelphia Historical Commission voted unanimously Friday to name Christian Street/Black Doctors Row as the city’s first Black historical district.
The historical district includes about 150 properties — brownstone homes, a church. Its spans from Broad and Christian Street to 20th Street. The district is effective immediately. (The Christian YMCA is in the area, but not included in the historic district, because the building is too new.)
For more than a year, many longtime residents of the neighborhood, the South of South Neighborhood Association and the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia have all advocated for the historic district, culminating in Councilperson Kenyatta Johnson’s introduction of legislation in 2021 to make it official.
“Christian Street has been a historically vibrant, professional community for decades,” Johnson said. “The corridor has always been a very vibrant area and we want to make sure we maintain the cultural fabric for decades to come with a historic district.”
Beginning in the 1900s, the area was home to many Black doctors and other medical professionals who worked at Mercy Hospital, a Black hospital. (Segregation prevented the Black doctors from working in white hospitals.)
Christian Street was also home to Black teachers, elected officials, small business owners and blue-collar workers. The surrounding area had restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues that catered to the Black residents.
One Black professional who lived in the neighborhood was Julian Abele, a Philadelphia native and prominent architect who designed more than 400 buildings across the country, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Main Branch of the Free Library. Abele lived in the 1500 block of Christian Street from the mid-1920s until he died in 1950. His home is still there.
Another prominent family who lived in the neighborhood was Dr. John Patrick Turner, a surgeon, and Marion Turner, whose daughter, Marion Stubbs Thomas, formed the organization now known as Jack and Jill of America, a nonprofit social and cultural group that teaches leadership among young Black adults.
One longtime resident who advocated for the historic district is Linda Evans, whose family has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years.
“This coalition effort set out to preserve the historic buildings where I and my neighbors live,” Evans said. “This is a neighborhood where we live, we work, we play. We have long-term generational neighbors, some four and five generations.”
Over the past year, nine buildings in the neighborhood have been demolished by developers, Evans said. Often, developers don’t see a neighborhood; “they only see money.”
Patrick Grossi, director of advocacy for the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, said historical designation makes it very difficult for developers to demolish buildings in the area without permission from the city’s historical commission.
“It’s a high bar,” Grossi said, such as imminent danger or fire.
But it won’t stop property owners from selling their homes and will probably stabilize property values and limit wild fluctuations, Grossi said.
