Biden says he supports a filibuster exception for codifying abortion rights and warns of broader threats to 'privacy'

• President Joe Biden said the Senate filibuster should not stand in the way of abortion rights legislation.
• The House already passed a bill last year that would codify Roe v. Wade into federal law.

President Joe Biden said for the first time on Thursday that he's in favor of removing the Senate filibuster to enshrine abortion rights into federal law.

"If the filibuster gets in the way, it's like voting rights ... we should require an exception to the filibuster for this action," Biden said

Biden made the remarks during a press conference in Madrid at this week's NATO summit.

Biden also called the recent Supreme Court decision "outrageous" and warned of threats to privacy more broadly, given that the initial Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 established a right to privacy not explicitly outlined in the Constitution.

An immediate challenge to Biden's proposal comes not from Republicans, but from moderate Democrats. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, for example, has said she does not support lowering the filibuster threshold for voting rights legislation.

Last year, the House passed a law that would codify the right to abortion at the federal level.

Sinema, along with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, indicated through their press offices that neither of them would be willing to make an exemption for the filibuster exemption Biden requested.

The White House has been facing pushback from the left wing of the Democratic Party in recent days, with progressives urging the administration to use executive action to backstop abortion rights after the Supreme Court reversed federal protections and sent the legalization of abortion back to the states.

Thirteen GOP-majority states had trigger laws in effect, which would roll back abortion protections in the event the court overturned Roe. States with abortion rights laws on the books were unaffected by the Supreme Court decision, and some Democratic-majority states, such as New York, have moved toward a special session for the legislature to further protect the right to an abortion.