President Joe Biden said Thursday he supports an exception to the Senate filibuster to codify abortion protections into federal law.
“I believe we have to codify Roe v. Wade into law and the way to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that,” Biden said Thursday, referring to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that said the Constitution protects the right to an abortion. The Court overturned the ruling last week, leaving decisions about abortion legalization to the states.
“If the filibuster gets in the way,” we should “require an exception to the filibuster for this action” to pass, Biden continued, adding that he supports changing the filibuster rules to protect any “right to privacy, not just abortion rights.”
The filibuster allows Senators to block action on legislation unless it receives 60 votes (certain legislation, such as items that advance with unanimous consent or that are included in the budget reconciliation process, can be excluded). Removing the filibuster would allow bills to advance with a simple majority, which Democrats could achieve with the vice president’s tie-breaker of a 50-50 Senate. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have been reluctant to support a change to this Senate rule in the past, including during a push for voting rights legislation earlier this year.
This post was produced by Tim McPhillips and Dan Cooney.
This post was produced by Tim McPhillips and Dan Cooney.
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG
Find more from PBS NewsHour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2HfsCD6
Follow us:
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pbsnews
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/newshour
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newshour
Facebook: https://www.pbs.org/newshour
Subscribe:
PBS NewsHour podcasts: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/podcasts
Newsletters: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/subscribe
