Who is Sen. Katie Britt? The Alabama Republican senator delivers the State of the Union address 2024 response to Pres. Joe Biden | #republicans | #Alabama | #GOP

WASHINGTON — In her response to Biden’s State of the Union address, Senator Katie Britt called out the President for the strife of families across the Nation, saying, “The American dream has turned into a nightmare for so many families.”

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, the youngest Republican woman elected to the US Senate, criticized President Biden and his administration over the border, the state of the US economy and crime and safety issues as she delivered the GOP’s rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

“President Biden just doesn’t get it – he’s out of touch. Under his administration, families are worse off, our communities are less safe and our country is less secure,” the senator said in her remarks Thursday evening, delivered from her kitchen table in Alabama.

Britt used her personal experience as an example in her response, “My American dream allowed me, the daughter of two small business owners from rural enterprise Alabama, to be elected to the United States senate at the age of 40.”

“The country we know and love seems to be slipping away and it feels like the next generation will have fewer opportunities and less freedoms than we did,” Britt continued.

“The true, unvarnished state of our union begins and ends with this: our families are hurting. Our country can do better,” Britt said.

Biden delivered the annual presidential remarks before a joint session of Congress Thursday evening. It has been an annual tradition for the opposing party to respond to the president’s address since the Reagan era, according to the Senate’s website.

MORE | State of the Union: Takeaways from President Biden’s address to the nation

GOP leaders have touted Britt, 42, as a leading voice in a new generation of Republican lawmakers in an attempt to draw distinction between the Alabama senator and Biden, the oldest president at 81. Republicans often point to the president’s age to make the case that Biden should not serve a second term, although Trump is only a few years younger at 77.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement last week that Britt will offer a “different perspective” to Biden’s attempt “to convince the American people to accept historic inflation, rampant crime, retreat on the world stage, and functionally open borders as the new normal.”

“Senator Katie Britt is an unapologetic optimist, and as one of our nation’s youngest Senators, she’s wasted no time becoming a leading voice in the fight to secure a stronger American future and leave years of Washington Democrats’ failures behind,” McConnell added in the statement.

Britt was first elected in 2022, when she also became the first woman elected to the Senate from Alabama. With Trump’s endorsement, she succeeded retiring Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, whom she previously served as chief of staff.

Britt’s state has recently been at the center of national headlines after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death – a move that is seen as infringing on IVF and has prompted a number of GOP lawmakers to distance themselves from the decision. CNN reported that some providers in the state resumed some in vitro fertilization services Thursday, the day after the state’s governor signed a new bill into law aimed at protecting IVF patients and providers from the legal liability imposed on them by the state Supreme Court ruling.

Britt is the only mother of school-aged children in the Senate Republican Conference. She has two children, a son and a daughter, in 8th and 9th grade, with her husband, Wesley Britt, a former offensive tackle for the New England Patriots.

Britt at the center of the Alabama IVF debate

Britt came into deep focus after the state Supreme Court in her home state made a controversial ruling that embryos created through IVF should be considered children under state law. The ruling caused immediate threats to fertility treatments in the state as many women were forced to postpone their IVF treatments while facilities contemplated the legal implications it could have on providers.

While Democrats swooped in to highlight how reproductive health care has continued to be eroded since the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022 — made possible by Republican appointments to the Supreme Court — Britt quickly became an outspoken defender of IVF.

She was front and center as one Republican after another issued statements making clear that the party supports IVF, as many called on Alabama to modify its rules to ensure IVF was protected.

In the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court decision, Britt, who is anti-abortion, called for protecting “continued access to IVF services.”

She then spoke directly to former President Donald Trump before he issued his statement reaffirming support for IVF following their ruling.

Democrats are clearly looking to highlight the Alabama ruling and what they cast as threats to reproductive health posed by Republicans in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court abortion access decision.

In recent weeks, Democrats have tried to draw a clean line from that decision to the Alabama court ruling that threatened IVF access.

And their announced guests at the State of the Union on Thursday certainly aim to emphasize the point. Early announced guests include the CEO of Planned Parenthood California, the first person ever born through IVF, and IVF advocates. President Biden invited Kate Cox, the Texas mom who sued to terminate her pregnancy after being denied, to be his guest at the State of the Union address.

Late Wednesday night, Alabama’s Republican Gov. Kay Ivey enshrined new IVF protections into law — signing the bill passed just hours before by the GOP-controlled legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support.

CNN contributed to this report.