“Women who are interested in accessing care, termination of their pregnancies, may not have resources to cross state lines,” Rochelle Walensky said. “Those who don’t may take matters in their own hands, and may not get exactly the care they need … I do think lives could be at stake in that situation.”

Walensky’s comments came following Politico’s publication of a leaked Supreme Court draft majority opinion indicating the nation’s top judges had tentatively voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that enshrined the legal right to abortion nationwide.

The implication of such a ban could ripple across the worlds of health care and medical training, Walensky said. For now, though, she characterized the Biden administration’s immediate response as being in “legal hands,” and said the CDC would continue to advocate for widespread access to abortion services.