The first lady, Jill Biden, in the State of the Union speech to be delivered by the American President on the evening of Thursday, March 7, is a young woman who has left her mark on public opinion. Twenty weeks pregnant, carrying a child with Down syndrome, Kate Cox burst into tears on screen in mid-December 2023, protesting the inaccessibility of a Texan magistrate who prevented her from obtaining the abortion procedure she needed but chose to avoid.
In a state like Texas, where individualism is a religion, Kate Cox, 31, a mother of two young children, explained that she will have to wait for the goodwill of local officials to find out what will happen to her – and the child with her. In the first instance, the judge ruled in his favor. Soon after, the Texas Attorney General threatened to sue hospitals that risked helping her terminate her pregnancy.
Finally, the Texas Supreme Court ruled. Magistrates did not find her condition alarming enough – although she made several trips to the emergency room – to justify an exception to the law banning any abortion unless the mother’s life was in danger in her case. Terrified that her native state would impose this “Additional Suffering”Kate Cox left her home in Dallas to get an abortion far away in Texas.
Victims of anti-abortion laws are no longer afraid to share their ordeals, publicly and in real time, like Kate Cox or Amanda Zurawski — the first woman to file a complaint against Texas after nearly dying in August 2022. Their testimonies are many StoriesReal stories that the Biden administration is not happy to share.
From Texas to Idaho, public opinion is now able to follow the plight of pregnant women, victims of ectopic pregnancy or other complications, hanging not on the advice of their doctor, but on the use of a court of justice. And who, contrary to the stereotypes conveyed by conservatives about women seeking abortions, are often young mothers from wealthy suburbs.
Changing the terms of the debate
On February 16, in vitro fertilization (IVF) was added to the list of concerns of American women. That day, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should benefit from the same protections as children. Media reports have revealed patients undergoing fertility treatment having their appointments cancelled; His IVF procedure was suspended mid-treatment by doctors fearing legal action. Facing an outcry, Alabama’s Republican governor released legislation on March 6 protecting people who benefit from or undergo in vitro fertilization.
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