As He Confronts Pressure To Safeguard Abortion, Biden Begins A Federal Response To The Texas Law

President Joe Biden used the word "abortion" for the first time as president on Wednesday, in response to a new Texas law that effectively outlaws most abortions.

The lack of the term from Biden's public remarks and pronouncements has enraged advocates, who argue that it represents an issue that has fallen off the priority list even as women's right to abortion is under attack in states across the Midwest and South.

The Supreme Court refused a motion from Texas abortion clinics to put the state legislation on hold, ensuring it will remain in effect for the time being. Patients have already been turned away by abortion clinics in the state because they are unsure of their legal status.

Biden used the word again in a statement released Thursday morning, calling the Texas law a "extraordinary assault on a woman's constitutional rights."

Biden criticized the law's unique enforcement mechanism, which allows ordinary persons to initiate civil actions against anybody who supports a pregnant person seeking an abortion, a "bizarre scheme" with the potential to unleash "unconstitutional mayhem," in significantly stronger words than he'd used a day earlier.

"Complete strangers will now be able to intervene in the most private and sensitive health decisions that women must make," he said.

Biden said he was launching a "whole of government" response to the law, directing HHS and the Justice Department to "see what steps the Federal Government can take to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions." He stated that the initiative would be led from the White House.

As the Texas law prohibiting abortions after six weeks takes effect, Biden is under pressure to take a more forceful stance on abortion rights. It's an issue on which the President has modified his position throughout his long career, even as a Democratic presidential candidate when he reversed his position on a bill allowing federal dollars to be used to pay for abortion.

Biden has promised to find a solution to protect a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion in both of his speeches on the Texas bill. However, the paths to doing so are uncertain, and the White House has been ambiguous about what particular steps are conceivable so far.