Responding to reports that the US Supreme Court will overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, President Joe Biden issued a statement on May 3 saying: “I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental.”

The President went on to say that “basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that [Roe] not be overturned.” If the Supreme Court does reverse the Roe decision, he continued, “it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose.”

In 1982 Biden—then a Senator from Delaware—voted in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment that would have overturned the Roe ruling and sent the issue of abortion back to the individual states: essentially the effect of the draft ruling that was leaked from the Supreme Court on May 2.