U.S. House of Rep. Melanie Stansbury has invited an OB-GYN doctor from Roswell as her guest for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday.
Biden will deliver the annual State of the Union address before both houses of Congress at 7 p.m. MT on Thursday. In it, the president sets forth his major policy agendas for the upcoming year and highlights his accomplishments.
Stansbury invited Dr. Destinie Marquez, a University of New Mexico OB-GYN and reproductive healthcare doctor, to attend Biden’s address in Washington D.C. Marquez is a Roswell native.
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat representing Colorado, announced on Wednesday that her guest for the State of the Union address is Adrienne Mansanares, who is president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.
Mini Timmaraju, president and chief executive officer of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice America) will also be attending the State of the Union as a guest of U.S. House of Representatives Minority Floor Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York. First Lady Jill Biden’s guest will be Kate Cox, the Texas woman who was denied an abortion after discovery of a severe fetal abnormality and sued. She lost her case and had to leave her home state to seek an abortion elsewhere.
Stansbury said abortion and the freedom to start a family through IVF “is the issue right now.”
An Alabama Supreme Court ruled last week that frozen embryos should be considered as children. The decision led to in-vitro fertilization clinics in Alabama to close.
Stansbury cited elections last year when Ohio voters voted to protect the right to an abortion and Virginia voters voted against a 15-week abortion ban.
“It’s very clear reproductive freedom and the rights of women are one of the definitive and one of the most important issues of our time. We’re in the fight of our generation to make sure we win back every seat we can and pass a bill to restore Roe and our reproductive rights,” she said.
