By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Alabama Supreme Court ruling designating frozen embryos as children under state law, which has caused fertility clinics across Alabama to halt IVF services.

To be clear: This decision is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

I’ve heard from Alabama women and couples who have spent years desperately hoping and praying to have children of their own. Some have spent their life savings on these treatments. But now, elected judges on the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court have stripped them of one of the most sacred dreams a couple can have.

Just yesterday, my office hosted HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra for a roundtable in Birmingham with some of these women. Today, some of them are going to Montgomery for a day of action at the Alabama legislature.

What does this decision mean and why does it matter?

It matters because as I write this message, women and families across Alabama are in limbo, desperate for a solution.

It matters because this only scratches the surface of the litany of ways we will be impacted by the rollback of Roe.

It matters because some of Alabama’s most conservative elected officials and Trump himself are ringing their hands trying to figure out how to clean up the legal mess they’ve made.

It matters because this is only the beginning of a national effort to ban reproductive services, from IVF to birth control.

The Alabama Legislature is trying to fix this with legislation to make patients and providers immune from criminal and civil prosecution. While we should be relieved that there is a solution, we can’t simply go back in time and forget that the overturning of Roe and the corresponding uncertainty around the legal definition of personhood leaves women and families vulnerable and fertility and reproductive health providers subject to more litigation.

Let’s be clear: This is not the first time we’ve seen these types of laws proposed (and in some cases passed) — but it is the first time it has happened without the protection of Roe v. Wade.

It is unthinkable that in the year 2024 we continue to fight the same battles our mothers and grandmothers did. Yet as extremists continue to roll back our hard-fought rights and freedoms, that’s what it’s going to take.

I will never stop fighting until we restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law and ensure the reproductive freedom of women everywhere.

I’ll always have your back,

Terri

P.S. Help me continue to fight for your in Congress right now with a donation of any amount today.