Reproductive Rights Front and Center at 2024 State of the Union Address
President Biden focused on access to abortion and the full spectrum of reproductive rights in the 2024 State of the Union.
On March 7th, Kate Cox, a Center for Reproductive Rights client who was denied an emergency abortion in Texas, was one of First Lady Dr. Jill Biden’s guests at this year’s State of the Union address. Kate received a fatal fetal diagnosis but was denied abortion care, endangering her health and future fertility. She was ultimately forced to flee her home state of Texas to receive the abortion she needed. President Biden told Kate’s story during the annual speech to Congress, saying:
“What her family has gone through should have never happened as well. But it is happening to so many others. There are state laws banning the right to choose, criminalizing doctors, and forcing survivors of rape and incest to leave their states as well to get the care they need.”
Besides being a key focus of the speech itself, over forty individuals from the reproductive rights, health and justice movement were in attendance as guests of Members of Congress or the First Lady, including five additional Center clients: Dr. Austin Dennard, Dr. Damla Karsan, Tammi Kromenaker, Kayla Smith, and Amanda Zurawski. This unprecedented uptick in movement presence at the event is a testament to the brave storytellers, like the Center’s clients, who have captivated the nation with their experiences of living in a post-Roe reality. Their stories show definitively that abortion is health care, and it is heartening to see the Administration support reproductive rights and health access in an important public forum.
While discussing Kate’s unconscionable treatment at the hands of the state, President Biden unequivocally stated, “America cannot go back.” As the Supreme Court ponders critical cases that will determine whether the country further regresses on mifepristone and emergency abortion care, it is high time that the federal government establish a national right to abortion. Reproductive rights in the U.S. must move boldly forward, so that people in every state are protected from the trauma that the Center’s clients, like Kate Cox, have endured.
Read more.
- Cox v. Texas: Read about Kate’s groundbreaking legal request to obtain an emergency abortion in Texas.
- Kate Cox on her legal fight for an abortion in Texas: Listen to Kate tell her story, in her own words, to CBS News Correspondent Tracy Smith, joined by her husband Justin and their lawyer Molly Duane from the Center for Reproductive Rights.
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