What to know about Alabama’s fast-tracked legislation to protect in vitro fertilization clinics
Alabama lawmakers are moving quickly this week to approve measures to protect in vitro fertilization clinics from lawsuits in response to the uproar sparked by last month’s Supreme Court ruling that found frozen embryos violate children’s rights have under the state’s wrongful death law.
Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, is expected to sign one of the two bills into law.
Each of the two bills would provide legal protections to fertility clinics, at least three of which halted IVF treatments following the court’s ruling to assess their new liability risks.
Here are things you need to know about the bills and the process of passing one of them into law.
Both the Senate and House of Representatives are advancing nearly identical legislation that would protect IVF providers and their employees from civil lawsuits and criminal charges for destroying or damaging an embryo.
Both measures, if signed into law, would take effect immediately and apply retroactively to any past damage or destruction that is not yet the subject of a lawsuit.
Lawmakers say IVF providers have told them the protections are enough to get them to resume services.
The bills are silent on whether embryos outside the body are legally considered children.
In a February ruling to allow wrongful death lawsuits brought by couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed in a fertility clinic accident, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that wrongful death law “applies to all unborn children , regardless of their location’. The ruling cited an anti-abortion provision added to the state constitution in 2018 that protects the “rights of unborn children.”
Applying wrongful death and other laws to fetuses and embryos is not new. But in an important development, a court said this also applies to embryos outside the body.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which represents IVF providers nationwide, said the legislation is insufficient because it does not overturn the ruling that considers fertilized eggs to be children.
One lawmaker wanted to amend the House of Representatives bill to ban clinics from deliberately throwing away embryos, but that was defeated.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling marks the first time since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a nationwide right to abortion in 2022 that the fallout has expanded to restrict IVF.
Many opponents of abortion support IVF. But some want embryos and fetuses to have the legal rights of children, a development that could pave the way for an abortion ban.
Alabama is one of 14 states that in the past two years have begun enforcing a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy.
Republican lawmakers support both measures in a state where politics is dominated by Republicans.
And they have strong support from lawmakers. The House version advanced 94-6 last week and the Senate version was unanimous, 32-0.
Former President Donald Trump, who is trying to return to the White House, said last week that he would “strongly support the availability of IVF.”
Nathaniel Ledbetter, Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, said this was a priority: “Alabamians believe strongly in protecting the rights of the unborn, but the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling denies many couples the opportunity to conceive , which is in direct contradiction.”
Lawmakers have accelerated these measures.
Each has already been adopted by the room it came from and sent to the other.
The bills, which could be amended, are scheduled for committee hearings on Tuesday.
Lawmakers are expected to give final approval to one — or perhaps both — on Wednesday and send legislation to Governor Ivey, who could sign one into law the same day.