Will a decree be enough to put out the political fire? Much criticized for his defense of the right to abortion, deemed timorous, Joe Biden tried on Friday to regain control by announcing new measures, however limited in scope.
According to a press release from the White House, the American president will sign an executive order including a series of initiatives, in response to the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.
This put an end on June 24 to the constitutional right to abortion in force throughout the United States since 1973, and seven conservative states have already prohibited access to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) . Many more should follow.
For many Democrats, who have been spreading in the press in recent days, most often on condition of anonymity, neither Joe Biden nor his advisers are up to this historic volte-face by the highest American court, which has become fiercely conservative.
Digital monitoring
The 79-year-old Democrat will therefore try to answer it on Friday. He must give a speech to detail his decree of the day, which promises, among other things, to “protect sensitive health information” and “combat digital surveillance”.
Many activists warn of the dangers linked to online data, from geolocation or applications for monitoring menstrual cycles, which could be exploited to prosecute women who have had an abortion.
The text also provides for the protection of mobile clinics performing abortions at the external borders of states that have banned it.
The White House also wants to guarantee access to contraception, in particular the morning after pill and IUDs.
The US executive also intends to organize a network of volunteer lawyers to help women on the legal front.
flop
These announcements are necessarily limited in scope. Despite his reputation for power, the American president cannot do much when, and this is the case for Joe Biden, he must battle against a Supreme Court and numerous hostile states without having a solid parliamentary majority.
Joe Biden is therefore calling on his compatriots to vote en masse for Democrats in the midterm elections in November.
Objective: to give him broad control of Congress in order to pass a federal law on the right to abortion, which would override the decisions of the States.
Many Democrats fear that this attempt at electoral mobilization will flop, coming from an unpopular president, and while galloping inflation is the biggest concern of households.
Beyond the right to abortion, some wonder if Joe Biden, a relentless centrist who is reluctant to show off, is cut out to face an ever more virulent American right, in an ever fiercer political climate.
One only has to read the editorials that have followed one another in recent days, including in reputedly progressive or center-left newspapers: “Is Joe Biden the wrong president at the wrong time? wondered the Washington Post recently, while The Atlantic wondered: “Is Biden a man of his time? »
Caught short
The very day of the announcement of the decision of the Supreme Court, however foreseeable following the leak in the press of a draft, the American executive seemed taken aback.
The US president’s first statement came late — even after reactions from foreign heads of state.
While hundreds of journalists and lawyers were screwed to the website of the highest American court, the press secretary in charge of the file at the White House was, according to a devastating article from CNN, gone for a coffee.
Joe Biden then gave a short speech, with strong words, to denounce a “historic error” of the Court.
He unveiled the first regulatory initiatives, on access to abortion pills and on the right of women to travel to other states if they wish to have an abortion.
But impossible the same day to know more. Extremely rare, his spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre canceled, without explanation, his daily briefing.
The departure in the wake of Joe Biden for a diplomatic tour in Europe has left activists or elected officials who were hoping for spectacular decisions, or, failing that, aggressive communication unsatisfied.