President Joe Biden vowed Friday that Democrats will codify the right to an abortion into law if two more are elected to the U.S. Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.
“If you give me two more senators in the United States Senate, I promise you, I promise you, we’re going to codify Roe and once again make Roe the law of the land,” Biden said at the headquarters of the country’s largest union, the National Education Association, in Washington, D.C.
With 46 days to go until November’s Election Day, Biden urged supporters at a Democratic National Committee event to consider “what’s on the ballot,” listing issues including abortion, Social Security and gun control.
“The power to get things done is in the hands of the American people, especially the women out there,” Biden said. “I don’t think the MAGA Republicans have a clue about the power of American women. Let me tell you something: They’re about to find out.”
Abortion has become a major issue for voters across the country after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June overturned the right to have an abortion enshrined nearly 50 years earlier in Roe v. Wade.
Thirteen states have already implemented an all-out ban on abortions, according to data collected by The New York Times. In total, nearly half of states have banned, placed limits on, or attempted to ban abortion. Some Republicans, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham earlier this month, have proposed a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks, or within the second trimester of a pregnancy.
Others, though, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have distanced themselves from the idea, arguing it should be left to the states.
Biden in his speech Friday said Republicans would try to pass a ban on abortion if they gained control of the legislature after the midterms.
If they did so, the president vowed, “I will veto it.”