Democrats want to remind voters of their efforts to protect access to abortion and most recently have seized on the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos are children.
They are looking to hold Republicans’ feet to the fire and force them to answer uncomfortable questions about the full impact of fetal personhood.
President Biden is expected to speak about reproductive rights in his speech Thursday night to argue that Republicans — especially former President Trump, the likely GOP nominee — are a threat to individual freedoms like abortion and in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Republicans have raced to distance themselves from the Alabama ruling, but congressional Democrats and Biden say it is the logical extension of Republicans’ anti-abortion views and are seeking to tie the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) will bring Elizabeth Carr — the first person to be born via in-vitro fertilization in the U.S. — as his State of the Union guest.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said she is bringing Illinois reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist Dr. Amanda Adeleye.
Duckworth had two daughters through IVF and is the lead Senate sponsor of a bill creating federal IVF protections. Sen. Cindy Hyde- Smith (R-Miss.) last week blocked Duckworth’s attempt to expedite its passage.
Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) invited Amanda Zurawski, who is suing Texas after she said she nearly died when doctors delayed giving her a medically necessary abortion until she went into septic shock.
First Lady Jill Biden invited Kate Cox as one of her guests. Cox is a Texas resident who fled the state to get abortion care after the state Supreme Court denied her an emergency abortion to terminate a nonviable pregnancy.
