Leelee Ray and her husband, Austin, had been trying to have a child for six years, through insemination procedures, two eggs, four embryo transfers, a potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy and eight miscarriages.
With four frozen embryos remaining in storage at a fertility clinic, the Rays, who live in Huntsville, Ala., decided to change course. In February, they turned to an agency in Colorado, where surrogacy laws are more lenient than in Alabama, to find a woman to carry their baby.
It all came to a screeching halt days later when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered “ectopic children” under state law, and many fertility clinics in the state suspended IVF treatments.
“When I called my clinic to ask how quickly I could get my embryos out of the situation, they told me everything had stopped, including the embryos being shipped,” Ms Ray, 35, said.
Hoping to quell a national outrage over the court’s ruling, Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed legislation Wednesday night that protects IVF clinics from civil lawsuits and criminal charges related to the handling of the embryos.
But for would-be parents like the Rays, significant damage had already been done.
The ruling cut off fertility treatments that are expensive, physically and emotionally taxing and extremely time-sensitive, precious resources that many couples lacked. Their experiences may soon be repeated in other states as anti-abortion forces push to redefine the principle of life.
The Rays’ surrogacy contract called for their embryos to be sent to Colorado as soon as possible. The surrogacy agency is working with the couple to extend the deadline, but if delays continue, the Rays could lose tens of thousands of dollars, as well as access to their chosen surrogate.
“I love that many in our legislature are people of faith who share my thoughts and beliefs,” Ms. Ray said. “But this is not a place for the government to get involved.”
“Now people are scared to death, and we’ve all sent messages saying, ‘Let’s move our embryos to California, the most liberal state we can think of, where we think it’s the last place this could happen,'” he added. .
The court decision caught some patients at pivotal, vulnerable points in their treatment.
Jasmine York, 34, an emergency and critical care nurse in Alexander City, Ala., had just started a course of medication to prepare for the implantation of a frozen embryo when her doctor called to say the court order had halted the process .
“I was completely taken aback,” said Ms. York, who describes herself as a Christian who does not support abortion. (He wears a pin depicting a robed Christ-like figure asking “Do you all need me?”)
Ms York and her husband, Jared, have a 13-year-old daughter from her first marriage, but her husband has no biological children and they really want a baby. She felt desperate and a little angry, she said. “At the end of the day, someone else’s opinion changed my future.”
He added: “Didn’t God give us science? Did he give us the ability to perform all these medical miracles? Doesn’t it work?”
Rebecca Mathews, a 36-year-old IVF mother of two, one of whom was named after her fertility doctor, was struggling with different questions when the ruling came down.
She and her husband, Wright, had a frozen embryo and their family felt complete. But they hadn’t decided whether to try for another pregnancy. “We thought we had time,” said Ms. Matthews, who lives in Montgomery, Ala.
The new law shielding IVF clinics may give the couple some breathing room, but how much is unclear. The law does not address the underlying legal issue — that frozen embryos are children under state law — and its protections are so broad that it may not survive legal challenges.
“It’s quite difficult to decide what to do with these embryos,” Ms Matthews said. “It’s a decision you have to make with your spouse and your doctor. We don’t need the government’s involvement.”
National anti-abortion groups that believe embryos – frozen days after the eggs are fertilized – are life, have opposed the new law. More than a dozen organizations, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, urged Gov. Ivey not to sign the bill, arguing that the court’s ruling “simply requires fertility clinics to exercise due diligence on the lives they create.”
An Alabama lawmaker who supported the new law, State Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Morgan, Ala., said the episode “revealed a silent holocaust going on in our state,” adding, “We’re dealing with life and the death of children.”
Over the past two weeks, many parents and parents-to-be who identify as Christians have wrestled with conflicting feelings about the sudden intersection of religious belief and public policy.
Lauren Roth, 30, who has a 7-month-old baby born through IVF, was one of several people who attended a rally in Montgomery in support of legislation to protect the clinics. She and many others wore orange, a color supporters say has symbolized fertility since ancient times.
Mrs. Roth and her husband, Jonathan, have seven frozen embryos. She would like to have them all transferred to her uterus, she said, “as long as I’m healthy.”
“I personally believe that they are unique beings created in the image of God, that each one is a unique genetic embryo that will never exist again,” Ms. Roth said. “I value embryos as life, but that’s a personal, individual belief.”
Other IVF women disagreed, saying a test-tube embryo should not be considered a child.
“It can’t be a child outside the womb,” said Mallory Howard, 34, who lives outside Mobile, Ala. “To me, that’s not an arrest.”
She has two children and was about to begin a cycle of ovarian stimulation to prepare for egg retrieval when the decision was made. The process was delayed.
The court’s decision “means that any time you have sex and an egg is fertilized but not implanted, and you never know, that could be considered an abortion,” Ms Howard said.
“We’re in the South, where people don’t want the government dictating to them whether or not they should have a gun,” Ms. Howard said. “But they’re fine with the government saying that reproductive rights is a government issue, just because they agree with that agenda.”
