'Republicans are clueless about the power of American women': Biden signs second abortion order

Signing a second executive order aimed at protecting abortion rights, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday the Supreme Court and Republicans are clueless about the power of American women.

Asking the federal health department to consider allowing Medicaid funds to be used to help facilitate out-of-state travel for abortions, the order is meant to address the recent Supreme Court decision to ban abortion across the US.

As Republicans in US states push a wave of laws restricting abortion the executive order is expected to have a limited impact.

Ahead of November's midterm elections, voters rejected a measure that would have made it easier to restrict abortion rights in red-state Kansas.

Since the Supreme Court's decision to rescind the 1973 Roe v. Wade verdict that made abortion legal throughout the country, this was the first major test of voter sentiment.

With an unusually heavy turnout, a bid to remove abortion rights from the Kansas constitution was rejected by 59 to 41 percent despite being a Republican stronghold.

Calling on voters to keep up the momentum into the midterms, Planned Parenthood said the Kansas vote "a clear warning to anti-abortion politicians."

Democrats are forecast to lose at least the House of Representatives and maybe the Senate in the November midterms due to soaring inflation and widespread pessimism in the messy aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The midterms are shaping up as rough for Democrats, who even now only control the legislature by a few votes, as it will decide which party controls Congress for the last two years of Biden's first term.

(With inputs from agencies)

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