MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A major Alabama hospital has halted in vitro fertilization treatments as health care providers consider the impact of a state court ruling that frozen embryos are the legal equivalent of children.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham said in a statement Wednesday that UAB’s Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility has halted treatments “while it evaluates the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision that a cryopreserved embryo is a human.”
“We are saddened that this will impact our patients’ attempt to have a child through IVF, but we must evaluate the possibility that our patients and our physicians could face criminal charges or damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments.” read the emailed statement from spokeswoman Savannah Koplon.
Other fertility treatment providers in the state continued to offer IVF as attorneys examined the impact of the ruling.
The ruling by Alabama’s all-Republican Supreme Court sparked a wave of concern about the future of IVF treatments in the state and the potential unintended consequences of extreme anti-abortion laws in Republican-controlled states. Patients called clinics to see if planned IVF treatments would go ahead. And providers consulted with lawyers.
Judges — citing language in the Alabama Constitution that the state recognizes the “rights of the unborn child” — said three couples could sue for wrongful death when their frozen embryos were destroyed in an accident at a storage facility .
“Unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location or other additional characteristics,” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote Friday in the majority ruling of the all-Republican court.
Mitchell said the court previously ruled that a fetus killed while a woman is pregnant is covered by Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act and that nothing excludes “ectopic children” from the law’s coverage.
The ruling brought a flurry of warnings about the potential impact on fertility treatments and the freezing of embryos, which were previously considered property by the courts.
Groups representing both IVF practitioners and patients seeking fertility treatments have expressed alarm over the decision.
Barbara Collura, the CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the ruling raises questions for health care providers and patients, including whether they can freeze future embryos created during fertility treatment or whether patients will ever be able to store unused embryos can donate or destroy.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s decision was based in part on anti-abortion language added to the Alabama Constitution in 2018, stating that it is “the policy of this state to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child.”
Eric Johnston, an anti-abortion activist and attorney who helped draft the constitutional language, said the “purpose of this was more related to abortion.” He said it was intended to clarify that Alabama’s Constitution does not protect the right to abortion and ultimately laid the groundwork for Alabama to ban abortions as states regained control over abortion access.
“Modern science has raised the question of whether a fertilized egg is frozen – is that a person? And that is the ethical, medical and legal dilemma we now face. … It’s a very complicated issue,” Johnston said.
However, opponents of the constitutional amendment warned in 2018 that it was essentially a personality measure that could give rights to fertilized eggs.