The Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen test-tube embryos must be considered children has sent shockwaves through the world of reproductive medicine, casting doubt on fertility care for would-be parents in the state and raising complex legal questions with far-reaching consequences. from Alabama.
On Tuesday, Karine Jean-Pierre, a White House press secretary, said the decision would cause “exactly the kind of chaos we expected when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the way for politicians to dictate some of the most personal decisions that families can make.”
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as President Biden traveled to California, Ms. Jean-Pierre reiterated the Biden administration’s call for Congress to codify Roe v. Wade’s protections into federal law.
“As a reminder, this is the same state whose attorney general has threatened to prosecute people who help women travel out of state to seek the care they need,” she said, referring to Alabama, which has begun enforcing a total abortion ban in June 2022.
The justices ruled Friday in appeal cases brought by couples whose embryos were destroyed in 2020 when a hospital patient removed frozen embryos from liquid nitrogen tanks in Mobile and dumped them on the floor.
Citing anti-abortion language in the state constitution, the majority opinion of the justices said that an 1872 statute that allows parents to sue for the wrongful death of a minor child applies to unborn children, with no exception for “ectopic children.”
“Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without destroying his glory,” Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote in a concurring opinion, citing s.
Infertility specialists and legal experts said the decision had potentially profound effects that should concern any American who may need to access reproductive services such as IVF.
One in six families struggle with infertility, according to Barbara Collura, the president and CEO of Resolve, which represents the interests of infertility patients.
“You changed the state of a tiny group of cells to now be a person or a child,” Ms Collura said. “They didn’t say IVF is illegal and they didn’t say you can’t freeze embryos. It’s even worse — there’s no road map.”
It has become standard medical protocol during IVF to extract as many eggs as possible from a woman and then fertilize them to create embryos before freezing them. Generally, only one embryo is transferred to the uterus at a time in order to maximize the chances of successful implantation and a full-term pregnancy.
“But what if we can’t freeze them?” Mrs. Koloura asked. “Are we going to hold people criminally responsible because you can’t freeze a ‘person’?” That opens up so many questions.”
Reproductive medicine scientists also criticized the decision, saying it was a “medically and scientifically unfounded decision”.
“The court ruled that a fertilized egg frozen in a fertility clinic freezer should be treated as the legal equivalent of an existing child or fetus gestating in the womb,” said Dr. Paula Amato, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
“Science and everyday common sense tell us it’s not,” he said. Even in the natural world, he added, many eggs are often fertilized before one successfully implants in the uterus and results in pregnancy.
Dr. Amato predicted that young doctors would stop coming to Alabama to train or practice medicine after the ruling, and that doctors would shut down fertility clinics in the state if their operation put them at risk of being brought up on civil or criminal charges. tariff.
“Modern fertility care will not be available to Alabama residents,” Dr. Amato predicted.
Couples in the midst of grueling and expensive infertility treatments in Alabama said they were flooded with questions and concerns, and some said they feared their providers would be forced to close their clinics.
Megan Legerski, 37, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., who is currently undergoing infertility treatment, said she recently became pregnant after implanting an embryo created through IVF, but miscarried after eight weeks.
She and her partner have three more frozen embryos they can implant, she said.
“Embryos to me are the best chance to have children and we are extremely optimistic,” Ms Legerski said. “But having three embryos in the freezer is not the same to me as having one that implants and becomes a pregnancy, and it is not the same as having a child.
“We have three fetuses. We don’t have three children.”
Katie Rogers contributed reporting from Washington.
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