President Biden on Wednesday called this week’s Alabama court ruling that frozen embryos are people a “direct result” of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, with his campaign laying the blame at the feet of former President Trump.
“Today, in 2024 in America, women are being turned away from emergency rooms and forced to travel hundreds of miles for health care, while doctors fear prosecution for providing an abortion,” Biden said in a statement. “And now, a court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.
“Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Biden added.
The president vowed to keep fighting for women’s reproductive rights and to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade at the federal level, though the latter is extremely unlikely given the divided Congress.
Biden’s statement came a day after the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, which marked the first time a court has ever given rights and protections so early after conception. The ruling did not ban in vitro fertilization (IVF) and is limited to Alabama, but it has far-reaching potential and seems poised to open a new front in the fight over reproductive rights in the country.
At least two Alabama health systems have said they will pause IVF treatments in the wake of the decision.
The Biden campaign, in a separate statement, tied the Alabama decision directly to Trump’s appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his first White House term.
“What is happening in Alabama right now is only possible because Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade. Across the nation, MAGA Republicans are inserting themselves into the most personal decisions a family can make, from contraception to IVF,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said in a statement.
“With their latest attack on reproductive freedom, these so-called pro-life Republicans are preventing loving couples from growing their families. If Donald Trump is elected, there is no question that he will impose his extreme anti-freedom agenda on the entire country.”
Trump, the likely Republican nominee in November, has not weighed in on the ruling. His lone remaining GOP primary rival, Nikki Haley, has said she believes embryos are babies, though she sought to clarify that she did not mean she agreed with the Alabama decision.
