WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is discussing possible legal and policy options to respond to the Alabama Supreme Court’s in vitro fertilization decision and support affected Americans in Alabama, as well as other states where IVF access could be at risk, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions.
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.
One source familiar with the discussions cautioned that the administration’s power to issue any executive action to protect IVF access is limited and much of the battle over the issue will be fought politically.
President Joe Biden’s aides are also brainstorming how he can capitalize on the Alabama decision as he campaigns for re-election, including new ways to speak about reproductive rights that frame the issue as one that broadly affects Americans. To that end, officials said, the Biden team will begin referring to reproductive rights as a “family, not just a woman’s, issue” and make the case that Republicans can’t make these decisions for “families.”
Officials said Biden now plans to address access to IVF, and the fallout from the Alabama decision, during his State of the Union address on March 7, with the possibility of the White House inviting a guest who was affected by the ruling to attend the speech. Already, first lady Jill Biden will host Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Dallas mom who sued to terminate her nonviable pregnancy in Texas, as a guest for the State of the Union.
The scramble to craft a policy, legal and political strategy in the wake of the Alabama decision underscores how decisive the president’s aides believe access to reproductive rights could be to the November election. Already, Biden aides had devised plans to make abortion access central to its campaign, while making the argument that the Republicans are trying to infringe on Americans’ freedoms and laying the blame squarely on former President Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner in the polls.
But prior to the Alabama decision, the White House had not mapped out a plan to respond if access to IVF was curtailed by the courts, according to the source familiar with the administration’s discussions, despite Vice President Kamala Harris saying Thursday that “we knew that IVF was always very much on the table” since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. And officials said the White House was not surprised by the Alabama decision.
As administration officials consider possible options, they’re staying in touch with stakeholders and advocates on the issue, including in Alabama. The Biden campaign similarly has been working with the abortion-rights groups Emily’s List and Reproductive Freedom for All on the issue, a campaign official said.
One administration official said IVF was included in some of the executive actions already taken by the Biden administration since Roe v. Wade was overturned, such as safeguarding patients’ health information and strengthening protections for people helping patients travel for reproductive care.
To emphasize the limitations of possible executive action, officials noted that the administration could technically clarify providers’ and patients’ legal rights amid confusion over state laws, but providers and patients may still be denied rights if they live in a state where its law is not protected federally.
The Biden campaign, meanwhile, plans to aggressively highlight personal stories of Americans affected by the Alabama decision and use the campaign’s surrogate network to keep this issue in the spotlight.
There are active conversations about how top officials, specifically Harris, can publicly message on the issue.
Both the White House and the Biden campaign also are closely monitoring abortion ban cases in Florida and Georgia and preparing to react as soon as decisions are made in the coming days, officials said.
