First Lady Jill Biden said Tuesday that ongoing legal fights over the legality of abortion in several states "go far beyond the right to choose" as pregnant women face "devastating consequences to their health, their fertility and their lives."

Biden’s comments came during a discussion with four women ahead of a formal event at the White House Saturday marking the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the legality of abortion to the states. The case was decided on June 24, 2022.

"The consequences of these bans go far beyond the right to choose," the first lady told the women. She then claimed doctors were denying some women medical treatment due to new laws imposed by state governments barring abortion procedures "because they don't know which procedures are legal."

"And like those who are with us today, far, far too many women are experiencing devastating consequences to their health, their fertility and their lives," the FLOTUS added.

HOUSE DEMS WILL USE RARE PROCEDURAL MANEUVER TO FORCE REPUBLICANS TO VOTE ON ABORTION RIGHTS

Jill Biden said President Biden "is doing everything he can to fight back," but is urging Congress to send him legislation that will "make the protections of Roe v. Wade the law of the land once again."

"I know that it isn't easy to relive what you’ve already gone through, but stories like yours are how we shed light on the cruel and devastating consequences of those bans," she told the women.

Biden’s guests included women from Texas, Florida and Louisiana, who shared emotional stories of being denied medical care during their pregnancies.

One of the women, Anya Cook of Florida, said she was denied medical care when she was 16 weeks pregnant as her state passed a 15-week abortion ban. The incident "very, nearly killed" her, she said.

SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS ROE V. WADE IN LANDMARK ABORTION DECISION

After her water broke at 16 weeks, doctors said her baby wouldn't survive without amniotic fluid but "because she was beyond 15 weeks and there was still a heartbeat, they couldn't touch me or treat me or admit me," Cook said. "They sent us home to deal with it ourselves."

Within days, she lost her daughter to a miscarriage. Cook is attempting to hold those who changed the law accountable.

"We don't know if I can get pregnant now or carry to birth, but the target of our wrath is very well-known: It's the people who have taken our human rights to health and liberty and personal autonomy," Cook said. "Someone needs to fight back against these insidious laws in states across the country."

JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON IS LONE DISSENTER AS SUPREME COURT VACATES ABORTION RULING

Another woman in the discussion was Dr. Austin Dennard, from Dallas, who said she decided to have an abortion but "this time I would have to flee my own state," she said.

She joined a lawsuit filed by other Texas women who were denied abortions.

"The state of Texas should not be making these decisions for me, let alone anybody else," Dennard said at the White House.

The Biden administration is planning several events this week to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision.

President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, the first lady and Harris' husband Doug Emhoff, are scheduled to appear at an event on Friday in Washington.

Harris is also scheduled to deliver a speech on Saturday in North Carolina on the Biden administration's efforts to safeguard reproductive freedom.

Immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision, 18 states enacted partial or full abortion bans.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A Chinese scientist partially funded by U.S. grants who was working in Wuhan was one of three researchers who fell sick with a mystery illness early on in the coronavirus pandemic, a former U.S. official confirmed Tuesday. 

Ben Hu had been working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology when he and the other two scientists were sickened with an unspecified illness in late 2019, potentially lending credibility to the theory that the pandemic could have originated from a lab leak rather than from a wild animal market in Wuhan. 

Hu had been researching coronaviruses at the lab when he became sick with a disease that mirrored the symptoms of COVID-19, U.S. intelligence reports said, the Wall Street Journal first reported. 

Some of Hu’s projects were funded by U.S. grants, a Freedom of Information Act by the nonprofit White Coat Waste Project revealed, according to the Journal.

WHO MEMBER WARNS OF ‘ADDITIONAL PANDEMICS’ IF WE DON'T LEARN FROM COVID

Between 2014 and 2019, $1.4 million was granted to the lab in Wuhan by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Institutes of Health, the Government Accountability Office reportedly said in a report last week, The grants ended in 2019.

Fox News Digital has reached out to NIH and USAID. 

Hu’s projects included in the funding were one studying animal viruses that could transfer to humans and cause a pandemic and one researching bat coronaviruses. 

Robert Kadlec, a former Health and Human Services Department official, told the Journal that Hu and the other two scientists "published on SARS-related coronavirus experiments done at inappropriately low biosafety settings that could have resulted in a laboratory infection." 

Along with Hu, the other scientists were identified as Yu Ping and Yan Zhu. All three of the researchers lived. 

Ping had written a report on coronaviruses found in bats prior to becoming ill, the Journal reported. 

The researchers were first identified in a Substack article last week, citing U.S. government sources, and referring to the scientists among "patients zero." 

The Substack article said the revelation "strengthens the case that the SARS-CoV-2 virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology." 

A Wuhan man who fell ill on Dec. 8, 2019, was previously identified by Chinese authorities as the first official case. Hu and the other two scientists became sick in November. 

FDA APPROVES NEXT ROUND OF COVID-19 VACCINES TARGETING OMICRON VARIANT

From the beginning of the pandemic, China has lacked transparency about the virus. 

"The lack of data disclosure is simply inexcusable," Maria Van Kirkhove, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, wrote in an April op-ed for the journal Science. "The longer it takes to understand the origins of the pandemic, the harder it becomes to answer the question, and the more unsafe the world becomes."

President Biden signed a law in March that could allow more information on the pandemic and its origins to be declassified – as early as this week. 

Neither experts nor the U.S. government is sure whether the pandemic originated from a lab leak or not. 

The Wuhan Institute of Virology told the Journal it had nothing new to say. Fox News Digital has reached out for comment. 

Kansas Sen. Roger Mashall, a Republican, said the revelations show a need for greater scrutiny over U.S. grants.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"Not only should we better monitor the scientists and types of research we support but we must reform the U.S. global research grant administration to ensure oversight, transparency, and accountability," he said, according to the Journal. 

Fox News' Rich Edson contributed to this report