What Biden Should Say About Abortion Rights Tonight, But Probably Won’t
Given the president's recent comments on abortion, we can expect his State of the Union to be wholly insufficient for the moment. Prove us wrong, Joe.
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President Joe Biden will give his State of the Union address tonight and, despite his campaign blaring that they’re running on abortion rights, you can bet that Biden will understate both the current abortion access crisis and the threat that a second Trump presidency would pose to people in all 50 states. Who knows, he might even take a gratuitous swipe at the procedure while he’s at it!
Abortion rights activists and anyone who supports reproductive freedom are sure to be gritting their teeth during the speech. Personally, I’ll be watching to see if Biden decides the issue is worth more than the paltry 30 seconds of airtime he gave abortion rights in his 2023 address and if he’ll be able to summon the strength to leave his longstanding distaste for abortion out of his remarks. Despite disastrous head-to-head polling against Trump, Biden can’t stop shitting on abortion rights: In just the last 30 days he’s said, “I don’t want abortion on demand, but I thought Roe v. Wade was right,” and “I’ve never been supportive of, you know, ‘It’s my body, I can do what I want with it.'” Yes, the man is allowed to have personal views but as a matter of political strategy, he’d do well to embrace the cold, hard truth that abortion is more popular than he is. For someone who ostensibly agreed to run on abortion, he really does keep undermining his biggest campaign issue.
Here’s everything he should talk about tonight, but probably won’t. Prove us wrong, Joe!
Kate Cox, the Texas woman who unsuccessfully sued to end her nonviable pregnancy, is attending the speech as First Lady Jill Biden’s guest, so he’ll no doubt, at the very least, refer to her saga. Hopefully, he’ll underscore the point that exceptions in abortion bans are unworkable bullshit.
He might mention the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision declaring frozen embryos to be people under the state’s wrongful death statute, a ruling that has effectively halted IVF in Alabama. And it would be great if he mentioned that, after that decision, Senate Republicans blocked a bill to protect IVF at the federal level—even after many of them spent the days following Alabama’s decision saying they support IVF. (Incredibly, Republicans chose Alabama Senator Katie Britt to give the GOP response to the speech, which will air live right afterward.) And in case Biden doesn’t mention that, consider this your reminder that more than 100 members of Congress have already co-sponsored an anti-IVF bill. In 2023, 125 GOP House members signed the “Life at Conception Act,” which would restrict IVF nationwide, declare embryos to be people, and ban all abortions.