Many conservative analysts have branded last week's State of the Union address as angry and partisan more fitting for the campaign trail than Capitol Hill. Politics aside, President Joe Biden made statements that simply were not true, factcheckers have found.
Many of Biden's errors center around the topic of abortion though the list doesn't end there. The president gravitated quickly to the in vitro fertilization (IVF) controversy that has engulfed the state of Alabama.
In late February, that state's Supreme Court ruled in response to a potential wrongful death lawsuit that embryos created through IVF are people and are afforded all manner of legal protection typically granted human life. Critics said it would have a far-reaching negative impact on the industry, and a number of hospitals and clinics did pause their IVP programs.
"The Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state, unleashed by a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade," Biden stated inaccurately during his SOTU address.
"The Alabama Supreme Court case that he's talking about had nothing to do with banning IVF. It was a civil case," Washington Stand editor Ben Johnson explained on Washington Watch Friday.
"In this case, there was a family that had produced some children and stored them in an IVF clinic in Alabama. Unfortunately, those children had been killed without their desire, and they wanted to know if they could sue for damages under the state's 1872 wrongful death of a minor act. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that they could because they are children, but it had nothing to do with any criminal law trying to ban IVF. There was no such law. He [Biden] made it up."
Johnson has written two pieces outlining Biden's passion for playing loose and free with the facts. Johnson's first assessment addresses 14 statements, the first five of them life-centric. The journalist challenged Biden on another five lies/misspeaks in a piece released Monday.
Biden's four faux facts – just for starters
On the subject of life, the president:
- Promised to prioritize restoring Roe v. Wade as "the law of the land again."
- Stated that the life of Kate Cox, a Texas woman seeking an abortion, was "at risk."
- Called abortion a "treatment."
- Stated that Donald Trump supports a national ban on abortion.
Johnson noted that Roe v. Wade was a Supreme Court decision and was never federal law. In calling to codify Roe, he noted, Biden would subvert the will of almost half the states.
"The bill that Biden endorsed to do that goes way beyond Roe. The law in question is the so-called Women's Health Protection Act, WHPA. It would strike down 1,381 state pro-life laws that the American people put on the books while Roe was still active," Johnson told show host Jody Hice.
Cox's story involves a Trisomy 18 diagnosis for her unborn child.
"She wanted to get an abortion. But one of the things that [Biden] said went even beyond the tragedy of that story: he said that her doctor had told Kate that her own life was at risk if she didn't act. Cox's physician had never certified that. That was actually what was at the heart of the Texas Supreme Court case. Texas abortion law allows a woman to have an abortion if her life is endangered by the pregnancy. However, her doctor never certified that. So, she ended up ultimately going to another state," Johnson explained.
Johnson also pointed out that while Trump has expressed some support for federal restrictions on abortion – perhaps at 15 weeks – Trump has not officially endorsed a ban.
Biden's abortion plan could not be more different than even a ban that doesn't begin until 15 weeks, Mary Szoch, the FRC's director for the Center for Human Dignity, told Hice.
"What President Biden is trying to do is to enshrine abortion on demand – the killing of an unborn child on demand, through nine months of pregnancy – into American law; and he is trying to overwrite state laws that are protecting unborn children that have been put into place by [state] legislators," Szoch said.
Biden's plan would put the U.S. on a par with North Korea and China in terms of human rights violations.
"It would allow a child to be killed seconds before that child's born, and we know for a fact that this does happen, that there's evidence pointing to this happening just blocks from the White House at Cesare Santangelo's abortion clinic. So, what is extreme? It is taking a human being's life. That's what he's taking," Szoch said.
There are life options even for women who face tragic circumstances similar to Cox's Trisomy 18 diagnosis for her unborn child.
Tragic diagnosis doesn't have to meet a tragic end
Szoch was part of an FRC study in 2023 that found perinatal hospice care to be an alternative to abortion.
Fourteen percent of unborn children who had received adverse prenatal diagnoses survived the birth, the study found.
However, respondents said that more than 55% of women received the recommendation of abortion from at least one of her doctors. Only 13% of women were encouraged by their first OBGYN to carry the pregnancy to term, and only 19% were given information about perinatal hospice by their OBGYN.
The study also revealed that most women, when told about perinatal hospice, were receptive to that option.
"In our study, we found that when these women are supported, they are overwhelmingly confident in their decision to carry their child to term. Over 85% said that they were very confident in that decision. That's a really beautiful thing that all these women need is, is a little bit of support. We found too that these women were overwhelmingly told to abort their child – and that's a tragedy," Szoch said.
