The incoming Biden administration is good news for women’s reproductive rights. We are in a time of crisis for abortion access. “And so we need this [Biden] administration to recognize that crisis and take steps not only to undo what the Trump administration did, which was add more and more restrictions, but actually to move us forward and get us to a better place than we have been,” said Gretchen Borchelt, of the National Women’s Law Center.

Many Americans are hoping that the incoming Biden administration will reverse many anti-abortion policies passed under the Trump administration. Trump’s policies have prompted many providers to leave the federal Title X program, reducing the availability of services provided almost by half, according to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.

“The harm that has been done by the Trump administration — the harm that has impacted a lot of low-income and rural communities around access to basic family planning services — has been horrific,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood.

Over the years, President-elect Biden has become increasingly progressive on the topic of reproductive/abortion rights. TIME pointed out that “In 1981, he supported a constitutional amendment that would enable states to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In his 2007 book, “Promises to Keep,” he wrote that while he is “personally opposed to abortion,” he didn’t feel he had the “right to impose [his] view on the rest of society.” Biden surprised everyone when he denounced his support for the Hyde Amendment in 2019.

“If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code,” he stated in June 2019.

In 2006 Biden called himself an “odd man out” because his views on federally-funded abortions did not align with either party and he received much criticism from his own party for this. “I do not vote for funding for abortion,” he said, per CNN. “I voted against partial birth abortion—to limit it—and I vote for no restrictions on a woman’s right to be able to have an abortion under Roe v. Wade. And, so I am—I made everybody angry. I made the right-to-life people angry because I won’t support a constitutional amendment or limitations on a woman’s right to exercise her constitutional right as defined by Roe v. Wade. And I’ve made the groups—the women’s groups and others—very angry because I won’t support public funding and I won’t support partial birth abortion.”

Biden understands the importance of not restricting women’s rights, and I think he will be good for abortion rights.

Lindsey Ulrey is a freshman political science major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or lrulrey@eiu.edu.