The State of the Union Address is more than a month away but President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden just made clear that full access to reproductive rights will be center stage as they announced their first guest: Kate Cox.
Cox is the Texas woman who needed a life-saving abortion and tried to obtain one in her home state legally. Her battle with Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who threatened to prosecute any medical professional who assisted her in obtaining an abortion despite a Texas court ordering she be allowed to have one, made national headlines. Later, the Texas Supreme Court overruled the lower court, blocking her from obtaining an abortion in state.
The Bidens spoke with Kate Cox over the weekend, the White House announced, to extend the invitation.
“They thanked her for her courage in sharing her story and speaking out about the impact of the extreme abortion ban in Texas,” White House Press Secretary Jean-Pierre said Wednesday, NBC News reports. “The first lady invited Kate to join her as a guest at the State of the Union and Kate accepted, so those are ways that you’re going to hear the president lift up those very personal stories.”
READ MORE: Manchin Blasts Biden as He Ramps Up Rumors of Possible Third Party Run
Cox and her husband Justin have two little children and were excited when they learned last summer a third was on the way.
“We have the two children that we absolutely adore, and yeah, the thought of having a third one added to the family was incredible,” Justin Cox told CBS News earlier this month.
“But a series of tests revealed the baby they were expecting, a girl, had trisomy 18, a genetic condition that causes severe developmental problems,” CBS News added. “According to a 2016 study, nine out of 10 infants won’t survive more than a year. And for Kate and Justin’s baby, the prognosis was even more grim.”
Kate said they were told the “best-case scenario” was that their baby would live for maybe a week, but she too was at risk of dying from the pregnancy.
READ MORE: Former Trump Press Secretary Serves up Surprise Praise for Biden on Fox News
“I didn’t want to watch her suffer. That would be very hard. She would have had to be placed directly on to hospice. There’s no treatment that can be done,” Kate Cox explained. “We know a lot of the trisomy 18 babies don’t survive birth, so I could lose her at any point in the pregnancy. There’s risk of infection, risk of uterine rupture. And we want more children as well, so what does that mean for future pregnancies?”
“I was shocked,” she added, “that the state of Texas wanted me to continue a pregnancy where I would have to wait until a baby dies in my belly, or dies at birth, or lives for days, and put my own health at risk, and a future pregnancy at risk.”
President Biden once again delivered remarks in support of abortion and reproductive rights on Tuesday, demanding Congress codify Roe v. Wade.
Watch below or at this link.
READ MORE: Eric Trump Alleges ‘All-Out War on God’ Since Father’s Election Loss