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March 7 (UPI) -- Democratic senators held a news conference Thursday ahead of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address to push for reproductive freedom. Several Senate Democrats invited guests to the news conference to call attention to the dangers of abortion bans passed by state Republicans.
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Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., invited Kayla Smith as her guest to the State of the Union.
Smith was living in Idaho in 2022 and was 18-weeks pregnant with her second child when doctors told her the child had serious fatal fetal anomalies, she said.
The news came shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, and Idaho's trigger law went into effect.
"We were scared. We didn't know what our options were," Smith said. "We could feel the tense and devastating situation in the room with our physician. You could tell she also did not know what she could say or how she could help us in those moments."
Unable to receive an abortion under state law, Smith and her husband traveled to Seattle, Wash., to receive an early induction of labor. The trip cost them thousands of dollars and required them to take out a personal loan, she said.
"The reality is there are so many women out there experiencing the danger and heartbreak of Republicans' anti-choice agenda, and there are so many doctors who are also, understandably, packing up and leaving states like Idaho that make it impossible to do their jobs in states that force them to watch their patients suffer," Murray said.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said she gets to celebrate her daughter's sixth birthday because of in vitro fertilization. She condemned the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that embryos are human children, saying it threatens to criminalize people just for trying to start a family.
"At this point, now that the first domino has fallen, it seems like it could only be a matter of time before more extremists succeed in enacting even more dystopian policies nationwide that take away women's access to even the most basic reproductive care," she said.
Duckworth in February pushed for the quick passage of a bill that would have provided federal protections for access to IVF, but Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi blocked the bill, arguing it would "subject religious and pro-life organizations to crippling lawsuits."
"I will never stop pushing clawing and fighting to pass this bill," Duckworth said," because every woman should have the right to be called mom without being called a criminal."
Duckworth invited Dr. Amanda Adeleye, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist and the medical director for CCRM Fertility's Chicago-area clinics.
"This is not only a woman's issue, but it's everyone's issue," Adeleye said. "And along with that, we want to make sure that fertility care is accessible to everyone."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer invited Kate Farley of Irvington, N.Y. Farley was diagnosed with a rare chromosomal issue that causes difficulty for an embryo to develop into a baby. Through IVF, she was able to give birth to her son in 2021 and is expecting a daughter later this month.
"Quite frankly, Kate's story shows clear as day that an embryo is not a baby," Schumer said. "We are going to preserve the right to IVF, and we're not going to let these right-wingers take over and impose their views on the beautiful women that we have here and millions more across America."
Farley said the Alabama decision "denies the scientific reality that I have experienced and that other women every day across the U.S. experience."
"My choice to have a baby I felt like was taken away from me," she said. "I wanted one so bad and I couldn't have it, and IVF gave me that choice back."
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday signed legislation that would protect IVF providers from civil and criminal liability. While the legislation does not address the issue of embryo's being children under state law, it prevents IVF providers from litigation "for the damage to or death of an embryo."
Biden is expected to vow to restore Roe vs. Wade during his State of the Union address Thursday evening.
