'I know you've never faced those choices - you've never been pregnant': Psaki snaps at Catholic TV's male reporter who asked why Biden 'supports abortion when his Catholic faith teaches it's wrong?'
White House press secretary Jen Psaki snapped at a male Catholic TV reporter questioning how President Biden squares his abortion views with his faith, telling him: 'I know you've never been pregnant.'
'Why does the President support abortion when his own catholic faith teaches it is morally wrong?' Owen Jensen, reporter for Catholic television network EWTN, asked the press secretary on Thursday afternoon.
'He believes it's a woman's right, it's a woman's body and it's her choice. It's up to a woman to make those decisions and a woman's decision to make with her doctor.'
'I know you have never faced those choices, nor have you ever been pregnant but for women out there who have faced those choices, this is an incredibly difficult thing the president believes that right should be respected.'
Psaki snapped after the Supreme Court refused to block one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, where terminating a pregnancy is illegal after 6 weeks' gestation.
Psaki was asked if the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling came as a shock to the White House.
'You can never predict rulings. We certainly know the make up of the court,' she said.
She was also asked if Biden's position on court packing has changed given the most recent ruling. 'He's waiting for the conclusion of this report,' she said.
Biden, the second Catholic president, meets with Pope Francis. Some have pressed the president to square his views on abortion with his Catholic faith
Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan dissented. The other justices - all appointed by Republican presidents - allowed the law to stand. From left: Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Elena Kagan, John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Stephen Breyer, Amy Coney Barrett, and Sonia Sotomayor
Biden appointed a commission to study the Supreme Court in April, which is considering proposals including to increase the number of justices, impose term limits, curtail the court’s jurisdiction, or mandate that only a supermajority of the court’s members can invalidate an act of Congress.
Biden promised such a commission as progressive Democrats pushed expanding the Supreme Court when the Senate confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett just weeks before the election.
Psaki said agencies across the White House and Department of Justice were working quickly to determine 'what, if any, steps can be taken here to protect a woman's right to choose and access to healthcare for women in Texas.'
Other abortion laws are enforced by state and local officials, with criminal sanctions possible.
After a federal appeals court refused to allow a prompt review of the law before it took effect, the measure's opponents sought Supreme Court review.
Biden released a forceful statement Thursday directing the executive branch to undermine the Supreme Court after it refused to take up a case regarding Texas's restrictive new abortion law.
'The highest Court of our land will allow millions of women in Texas in need of critical reproductive care to suffer while courts sift through procedural complexities,' Biden wrote.
He ordered the White House Counsel's office to mount a response to the court's decision, guided by the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice.
The law, known as the 'Texas Heartbeat Act', bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is normally after six weeks and before many women even know they are pregnant.
It makes no exceptions for rape or incest and allows Texans to report people, including Uber drivers, who help or take women to get abortions. The only exemption is if there is a danger to the woman's health.
Biden vowed to directly challenge the Supreme Court, by ordering the agencies to apparently circumvent the ruling and 'ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions as protected by Roe.'
He asked the White House to look at 'what legal tools we have to insulate women and providers from the impact of Texas' bizarre scheme of outsourced enforcement to private parties.'
Biden, the second Catholic president in US history, has been criticized by church officials in the past because his pro-choice stance goes directly against Catholic doctrine.
Attorney General Merrick Garland reaffirmed the DOJ would take the matter up, stating: 'The Justice Department is deeply concerned about Texas SB8. We are evaluating all options to protect the constitutional rights of women, including access to an abortion.'
President Joe Biden speaks to a priest as he leaves St. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del., after attending a Mass, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021
The justices in a 5-4 vote denied an emergency request by abortion and women's health providers for an injunction barring enforcement of the new law which President Biden said on Wednesday 'blatantly violates Roe v. Wade'.
'In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants' lawsuit. In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas's law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts,' the court said in the unsigned order.
The five conservative justices backed the law Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan dissented.
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the court's order 'stunning,' saying her colleagues had 'opted to bury their head in the sand' over a 'flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights.'
In her dissenting opinion on Wednesday Sotomayor accused the court's conservative majority of 'burying their heads in the sand.
'The Act is clearly unconstitutional under existing precedents,' the Obama appointee wrote. 'The respondents do not even try to argue otherwise. Nor could they: No federal appellate court has upheld such a comprehensive prohibition on abortions before viability under current law.'
'Taken together, the Act is a breathtaking act of defiance—of the Constitution, of this Court's precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas.'
Justice Kagan, also appointed by ex-President Obama, claims Texas's law has a 'clear' and 'undisputed' conflict against Roe v. Wade.
She accused the Supreme Court majority of only hastily reviewing the case and then only 'barely bothers to explain its conclusion.'
Kagan blasted the court's 'shadow-docket decision making' which she claims is responsible for increasingly 'un-reasoned, inconsistent, and impossible to defend' rulings.
Texas lawmakers wrote the law to evade federal court review by allowing private citizens to bring civil lawsuits in state court against anyone involved in an abortion, other than the patient.
Progressive 'squad' members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush are leading calls to pack the Supreme Court after it declined to block the Texas abortion law in a 5-4 decision.
Ocasio-Cortez and Bush are leading renewed calls to expand the Supreme Court to tip its current conservative majority in the wake of the 5-4 ruling
Abortion rights supporters gather to protest Texas SB 8 in front of Edinburg City Hall on Wednesday
Ocasio-Cortez lashed out against the Supreme Court early Thursday morning over its refusal to block the law called on Democrats to 'abolish the filibuster and expand the court.'
In a Twitter post published just after midnight, the progressive lawmaker accused Republicans of overturning landmark case Roe v. Wade.
'Republicans promised to overturn Roe v Wade, and they have,' Ocasio-Cortez wrote. 'Democrats can either abolish the filibuster and expand the court, or do nothing as millions of peoples’ bodies, rights, and lives are sacrificed for far-right minority rule.'
She added that it 'shouldn't be a difficult decision' for her colleagues.
Hillary Clinton invoked Roe v. Wade on Thursday and accused the Supreme Court of 'gutting' the 1973 case.
'Last night, the Supreme Court officially overturned five decades of settled law and permitted Texas' unconstitutional abortion ban to stand,' she wrote.
'Yes: They gutted Roe v. Wade without hearing arguments, in a one-paragraph, unsigned 5-4 opinion issued in the middle of the night.'
Cori Bush said the ruling embodied 'far-right extremism' on Wednesday.
'In the span of one week the Supreme Court forced 11 million households to face eviction and effectively overturned Roe v. Wade in the middle of the night.
'This is what far-right extremism looks like. We need to expand the court.'
The two squad members expressed outrage at the Supreme Court's ruling on Twitter
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