WASHINGTON (CNS) – The U.S. bishops’ pro-life chairman said it is “deeply disturbing and tragic” that President Joe Biden has chosen to use his power as the nation’s chief executive “to promote and facilitate abortion in our country” than support resources for pregnant women in need.

Biden is “seeking every possible avenue to deny unborn children their most basic human and civil right, the right to life,” said Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

“Rather than using the power of the executive branch to increase support and care to mothers and babies, the president’s executive order seeks only to facilitate the destruction of defenseless, voiceless human beings,” he said in a July 9 statement.

A day earlier, Biden signed an executive order to safeguard access to medication abortion and emergency contraception, protect patient privacy, launch public education efforts as well as strengthen “the security of and the legal options available to those seeking and providing abortion services.”

Before signing his executive order, Biden condemned what he called the “extreme” Supreme Court majority for overturning Roe v. Wade.

Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said Biden’s executive order “confirmed the White House is working to appease the abortion lobby to the detriment of women and their unborn children.”

“On no other issue, from inflation to high gas prices, have President Biden and pro-abortion Democrats put forward so much effort as they have on abortion,” she said in a July 8 statement.

Biden “seems to think that Americans’ problems can only be solved by killing (the nation’s) children by abortion,” she said.