Senator Cory Booker (D, N.J.) speaks with reporters on the way to the Senate floor on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., October 3, 2018. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Senator Cory Booker (D., N.J.) announced on Wednesday that he will create a “White House Office of Reproductive Freedom” if he triumphs in the expansive Democratic primary field and is elected president in 2020.

According to a plan released by Booker’s campaign, the office would coordinate with officials from multiple agencies to ensure the fulfillment of his administration’s reproductive-health priorities, including, among other things, access to abortion, contraception, paid family leave, and pregnancy care.


“Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country are mounting a coordinated attack on abortion access and reproductive rights,” Booker said in a statement. “A coordinated attack requires a coordinated response. That’s why on day one of my presidency, I will immediately and decisively take executive action to respond to these relentless efforts to erode Americans’ rights to control their own bodies. I will also pursue a legislative response, including legislation to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law.”

As part of this effort, Booker also vowed to reinstate funding for the United Nations Population Fund, which focuses on promoting global reproductive health. He also would reverse the Trump administration’s Mexico City policy, which prohibits clinics that receive federal funding under Title X from providing or promoting abortion overseas.

The announcement comes just days after Alabama governor Kay Ivey signed the nation’s most restrictive abortion bill into law. The bill, which prohibits virtually all abortions at any stage of pregnancy, is currently unenforceable but was advanced by the state’s Republican legislature in order to prompt a challenge to Roe v. Wade.


Booker and a number of his fellow presidential aspirants have vowed to advance federal legislation to codify the federal abortion policy created by the Supreme Court decision in Roe.

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