US health secretary on Alabama’s IVF ruling: ‘Pandora’s box was opened’ after fall of Roe

The Health and Human Services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if Americans hope to avoid further restrictions on in vitro fertilization, contraception and abortion in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.

Becerra’s comments come in the wake of an Alabama supreme court decision that gave embryos the rights of “extrauterine children” and forced three of the state’s largest fertility clinics to stop services for fear of litigation and prosecution.

He said the events in Alabama are linked directly to the “take-down” of Roe v Wade, a decision that provided a constitutional right to abortion grounded in privacy and was overturned by conservative US supreme court justices in 2022.

“It wasn’t until this new court came in” – that is, that three new supreme court justices were confirmed by former President Trump – “that we saw the attacks on Roe v Wade take hold, and today without Roe v Wade there are women who are trying to have babies in Alabama who are facing the consequences,” said Becerra.

He continued: “None of this would be happening in Alabama on IVF if Roe v Wade was still the law of the land, and no one should try to deny that.”

Becerra’s comments come ahead of President Biden addressing the nation in the State of the Union on Thursday night. Although the White House has not released the speech, a large number of Democratic guests suggest reproductive rights may feature heavily.

Among the guests of high-ranking Democrats are Elizabeth Carr, the first person in the US to be born via IVF; Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who nearly died of septic shock when she was denied a medically necessary abortion; and Kate Cox, who had to flee Texas for an abortion after she