War on IVF: Iowa passes law opening door to life sentences for doctors who destroy embryos

Iowa Republicans have introduced a bill that would criminalize the death of an “unborn person” — including an embryo — in what critics say marks an escalation of attacks on IVF.

The new legislation, which must pass the Senate and be signed by Governor Kim Reynolds to become law, would impose a life sentence on anyone found to have “caused the death of an unborn person.”

The bill will likely reach Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk for signage. It’s a prospect that has fellow lawmakers and activists on the ground bracing for a chaotic fallout, including possibly closing IVF clinics for fear of prosecution, similar to what happened in Alabama last month.

Iowa lawmakers did not say they intended to interfere with the IVF process, and the bill makes no mention of IVF at all. But it also does not protect IVF, and a motion to do so was withdrawn from the proceedings.

Democratic Iowa Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell warned that the bill “endangers IVF, whether you want to believe it or not.”

The Iowa bill specifically changed the language referring to the termination of a “human pregnancy” as the “death of an unborn person.”

In Iowa, an embryo is considered an unborn person. In addition to Alabama, nine states – South Dakota, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and Texas – define life as beginning at conception. States could be next to restrict IVF in some way.

The current language of the Iowa bill states: ‘A person who… causes the death of an unborn person without the consent of the pregnant person is guilty of a class “A” misdemeanor.”

It also states: ‘A person who unintentionally causes the death of an unborn person… is guilty of a class ‘B’ misdemeanor, punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Rep. Wessel-Kroeschell said the bill for IVF services in Iowa could cause “the same chaos” as what happened in Alabama last month — after the state Supreme Court ruled that embryos had the same legal protections as fully formed people.

Republican Rep. Skyler Wheeler, who co-authored the bill, said it was only intended to increase penalties for killing a mother and her unborn baby, adding that his fellow lawmakers are “trying to turn this into a new discussion.”

He rejected comparisons to the Alabama ruling, saying, “This bill should have lasted two minutes. Sometimes you hear things, and you see things, and you just… can’t wrap your head around the madness.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, the Democratic minority leader in the Iowa State House, called it an “Alabama-style bill.” She told NBC News, “Iowa Republicans will do everything they can to ban abortion, even if it means criminalizing people undergoing IVF treatments.”

Gabby Goidel (pictured right next to husband) was a few days away from collecting the eggs when the Alabama ruling went into effect. Nervous about what that would mean for her chances of having a baby, she and her husband packed up and headed to Texas for IVF treatment.

Amanda Zurawski, 36 from Texas (pictured right with her husband) has chosen to move her frozen embryos out of state out of fear that her state would follow Alabama’s lead and prevent her from starting a family on her terms

The Alabama ruling sent shockwaves through the state’s fertility clinics.

The ruling itself stated that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children and that destroying unused embryos would violate the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act of 1872.

During the normal IVF process, a doctor harvests eight to fifteen eggs from a woman’s ovaries and manually combines them with sperm in a laboratory for fertilization.

However, not all embryos develop. Embryos may have chromosomal abnormalities or genetic mutations that prevent them from developing normally.

Some embryos may also have the necessary genetic makeup to develop into healthy fetuses, while others may not. Embryos that do not implant in a uterus are typically frozen or destroyed.

But suddenly fearful of persecution, Alabama IVF clinics temporarily halted services and told anxious mothers-to-be to take it easy.

One of those patients was Alabama native Gabby Goidel, who was just days away from retrieving her eggs when the state court ruling came down. She and her husband frantically called other providers in the state, but could not find another provider. Finally, they packed their bags and went to Texas.

Ms Goidel, who has an unexplained genetic fertility problem, said: ‘Most of our embryos will not be genetically normal.

“My hope would be that we can pass those embryos naturally, but now it’s, ‘Should we save them?’ “I don’t necessarily want to implant a child who I know will miscarry.”

According to Heather Williams, chair of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, an influential organization that works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, the Iowa bill in response to the Alabama court ruling is symptomatic of a major effort to undermine women’s bodily autonomy.

Mrs. Williams said: “In a country full of Republican lawmakers trying to outdo each other in rolling back basic freedoms, this bill from Iowa shows that what happened in Alabama last month isn’t just confined to one state.

‘Protection for IVF and other reproductive freedoms should be the law of the land. Once again, Republicans are not slowing down in their attacks on women and reproductive rights.”

At the same time, Amanda Zurawski, 36, of Texas, has chosen to move her frozen embryos out of the state, fearing that lawmakers could follow Alabama’s lead and prevent her from starting a family on her terms.

She said the IVF process is scary enough on its own, but the ruling and the subsequent closure of some clinics in Alabama have added “another layer of fear and anxiety.”