Well being and Human Companies Secretary Xavier Becerra is racking up frequent-flier miles as he hopscotches the nation to spotlight well being points the White Home hopes will change into pivotal for voters this yr — none extra so than reproductive rights.
“No girl right this moment ought to concern [not having] entry to the care that she wants. President Biden has made that clear,” Becerra stated final Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
It was a well timed go to. The day earlier than, the state’s Supreme Court docket greenlit an abortion rights poll measure that Democrats hope will drive turnout in November, whereas additionally upholding the six-week abortion ban signed into regulation by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) final yr. The ban takes impact Could 1.
Becerra referred to as the regulation “medical apartheid” in remarks following a subject listening to Home Democrats held in Fort Lauderdale on reproductive well being care. The Democrats sought to spotlight the GOP’s function in abortion bans that most People oppose.
He drew a line connecting the Supreme Court docket’s 2022 determination overturning Roe v. Wade to current state efforts to limit fertility remedy and entry to contraception.
“On the finish of the day, Roe was about all of us and our care,” he stated. “It was not merely about abortion.”
It wasn’t the primary time this yr that the secretary has arrived someplace at an opportune second. He traveled to Alabama in February within the wake of that state’s Supreme Court docket ruling declaring that embryos created by means of in vitro fertilization are kids. He held a roundtable with IVF sufferers and framed the courtroom’s determination as an assault on reproductive freedom.
The week earlier than he visited Florida, Becerra was in South Carolina, one among 14 states with extreme abortion restrictions and amongst these with the best maternal mortality charges.
Two days later, Becerra appeared in Michigan, probably the most aggressive states within the upcoming presidential election, the place he boasted concerning the Biden administration’s efforts to decrease prescription drug costs and joined Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) for one other roundtable on reproductive rights.
Becerra, a former California lawyer normal and Home member, is a fluent Spanish speaker whose travels embrace a “Nationwide Latino Well being Tour” — a key demographic for Biden’s reelection hopes. Becerra’s remarks usually cowl different Biden well being priorities, together with decreasing drug costs, growing psychological well being entry, boosting funding for most cancers analysis, and enhancing medical health insurance protection and well being fairness.
“From Colorado, I head over to New Mexico,” Becerra stated as he left the Florida occasion. “We’re going to go all over the place we have to go.”
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