Democrats invite doctors, patients to SOTU to highlight Dobbs’ ripple effects

A handful of Democrats plan to bring fertility doctors and patients to the State of the Union Thursday night, as part of an attempt to highlight the wide-ranging effects of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and remind voters about Democrats’ efforts to protect access to abortion and in vitro fertilization.

The invitations come as Democrats have seized on the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that declared embryos are children, leading some IVF clinics in the state to pause their operations. President Joe Biden, who is expected to speak about reproductive rights Thursday night, and congressional Democrats have accused Republicans of jeopardizing IVF treatments, noting that overturning Roe had consequences not only for abortion rights, but fertility care, emergency medicine and contraception, too.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Tuesday that he would bring Elizabeth Carr, the first person in the United States born via in vitro fertilization, in Norfolk, Virginia in 1981, as his guest. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) have invited Drs. Amanda Adeleye and Pietro Bortoletto, respectively. Both are reproductive endocrinologists who specialize in fertility care.

Duckworth, who had two daughters through IVF, took her bill to enact federal protections for the procedure to the Senate floor last week, an effort that Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) blocked.

Barbara Collura, president and CEO of Resolve: The National Infertility Association, will attend as the guest of Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), while Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) will bring Rebecca O’Connor, director of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Center for Policy and Leadership, who is also the mother of twin 11-year-old girls born with the help of IVF.

First lady Jill Biden will sit with Kate Cox, a Texas woman who was denied an emergency abortion by her state’s Supreme Court.

And with an eye on the 2024 election, abortion-rights groups and others working in reproductive medicine are already making plans to highlight those stories as Democrats work to make abortion and reproductive health care a central issue in the election.

“A lot of women in this country have been directly impacted by these bans that do not allow people to access the kind of health care they need, or have to leave their own home state in emergency circumstances,” said J.J. Straight, national campaigns director for reproductive rights at the ACLU.