President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday promised to take action after a new law in Texas that bans most abortions went into effect.
The House of Representatives will, after it returns from recess, take up a bill that would limit states from restricting access to abortion, Pelosi said in a statement.
Abortion is the act of ending the life of an unborn baby.
Pelosi and Biden are both Catholics who support abortion, in contravention of their religion. Catholic leaders have mulled denying them communion over their pro-abortion stance, and Biden has been denied communion at least once.
The law lets private citizens bring lawsuits against doctors who perform abortions after fetal heartbeats are detected, or anybody else who allegedly aids or abets illegal abortions.
State officials, meanwhile, are blocked from enforcing the law.
That unusual arrangement helped the law withstand initial scrutiny from the nation’s top court, a majority of which said it was unclear whether the defendants in a lawsuit from abortion providers, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, “can or will seek to enforce the Texas law against the applicants in a manner that might permit our intervention.”
“Complete strangers will now be empowered to inject themselves in the most private and personal health decisions faced by women,” Biden said.
Biden directed his Gender Policy Council and the Office of the White House Counsel to launch an effort to respond to the Supreme Court decision.
Republicans, on the other hand, widely cheered the new law and the court decision that let it remain in effect.
“The Supreme Court just let Texas’s pro-life law go into effect, saving countless innocent lives,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said in a statement.
“This common sense law protects babies with a heartbeat,” added Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.).