It was 11 days ago when the Alabama Supreme Court’s far-right majority ruled that frozen embryos are actual people. It wasn’t long before real-world consequences started affecting families throughout the state, including three medical facilities halting in vitro fertilization treatments.
It also wasn’t long before some officials started asking what, if anything, can be done to help those hurt by the court’s ruling. NBC News reported that Biden administration officials have already begun discussing “possible legal and policy options.”
The effort involves officials from the White House, the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, the officials said. The discussions are in the early stages and no decisions have been made, officials said.
To be sure, these discussions might not amount to much. At issue is a state policy, decided by a state court, which can’t be undone by executive action. There’s no doubt that President Joe Biden and his team oppose what the Alabama Supreme Court did, but the options for undoing it from the White House effectively do not exist.
That said, the administration is clearly taking the matter seriously, and as the Associated Press reported, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is traveling today to Alabama, where he’ll “meet with patients and doctors who have been impacted by the state court’s ruling.”
I made the point yesterday that Team Biden appears to be on the offensive on this issue, and there’s a growing body of evidence that bolsters the point.
On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, congressional Democrats are thinking along the same lines. Three Democratic senators — Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, Illinois’ Tammy Duckworth, and Washington’s Patty Murray — are holding a press conference this morning in the hopes of generating attention for legislation that would protect IVF treatments at the federal level.
Duckworth, in particular, has helped take the lead on this issue — the Illinois senator relied on IVF for both of her children — and her “Access to Family Building Act“ currently has 15 co-sponsors. Though Republicans have spent recent days touting IVF, zero GOP senators have signed on to support Duckworth’s proposal.
In the House, Democratic Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania is championing a companion bill, which has 33 co-sponsors. (Literally all of them signed on to support the bill after the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling, though Wild first introduced the legislation last month.)
If far-right figures are waiting for this story to quietly fade away, they’ll apparently have to wait quite a bit longer.