A second Alabama fertility clinic has suspended in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment after the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are boys.
Alabama Fertility’s Birmingham clinic has “paused embryo transfers for at least a day or two,” said Penny Monella, director of operations at Alabama Fertility Specialists.
Clinics are pausing IVF procedures for fear of prosecution, because the ruling means people could theoretically be sued for destroying an embryo.
The ruling could open the door to wrongful death lawsuits in any cases where embryos do not survive being thawed and transferred to the womb, which could send the state’s doctors fleeing elsewhere to practice medicine.
Prominent states have written laws that stipulate that life begins at the moment of fertilization. In Louisiana, the intentional removal or destruction of a human embryo is illegal
Alabama native Gabby Goidel opted for IVF due to an unexplained genetic fertility issue. But she now worries about the impact the Alabama ruling will have on her chances of getting pregnant.
It stated: “The Wrongful Death of a Child Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” including “unborn children who are outside a biological womb at the time of their death.”
It comes after the University of Alabama Hospitals yesterday halted IVF treatments over fears that doctors will be prosecuted.
“We are saddened that this will affect our patients’ attempt to have a baby through IVF, but we must evaluate the possibility that our patients and our doctors could be criminally prosecuted or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments. IVF”. University spokeswoman Savannah Koplon said Wednesday.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s unprecedented ruling is the first to grant full human rights to an organism so soon after fertilization and opens the door to similar rulings in other states.
Three couples may sue for wrongful death after their frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic.
Judge Greg Cook said the ruling “almost certainly ends the creation of frozen embryos through IVF in Alabama.”
Mrs. Goidel and her husband
Alabama doctors have fielded calls from nervous patients like Gabby Goidel, 26, who decided to try in vitro fertilization after several miscarriages due to unexplained genetic infertility.
She opted for IVF because the process allows doctors to test embryos for abnormalities, and Goidel believes it would not be fair to her or a child to have a nonviable fetus that could be miscarried or born with serious health problems.
Goidel said she was filled with dread when she heard the news.
She told NBC News: ‘Most of our embryos will not be genetically normal.
“My hope would be that we could let those embryos go naturally, but now the question is, ‘Do we have to save them?’ I don’t necessarily want to implant a child that I know is going to miscarry.”
IVF advocates have warned for years that restrictions on IVF were a possible repercussion of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Barbara Collura, CEO of Resolve: The National Infertility Association, saying: ‘This is exactly what we feared and were worried about where it was going.
“We are very concerned that this could happen in other states.”
Ms. Collura added that the lawsuit does not declare IVF illegal, “but it does say that the embryos manipulated in an IVF process are children.” They are persons. And that begs the question: Can we freeze a human? And if we freeze a human, who is responsible for it?
The ruling is limited to Alabama, but reproductive rights advocates have warned of a possible ripple effect elsewhere.
A estimated 1.5 million Embryos are currently located in cryogenic nurseries throughout the United States.
A wrongful death lawsuit over a discarded embryo could reach the courts in those states, forcing judges to make an equally shocking decision. Or, state legislatures would have to pass and enact a law prohibiting the disposal of embryos and potentially penalizing those who do so.
IVF is a process in which eggs extracted from the woman’s ovaries are fertilized outside the uterus and implanted in the woman’s uterus. Doctors usually fertilize as many healthy eggs as possible to give a woman the best chance of having a baby; Unused fertilized eggs are frozen and stored.
In the end, unused embryos are discarded, although the timing depends on the clinic and the patient’s needs.
With possible consequences for discarding unused embryos, doctors may be prohibited from fertilizing eggs that will not end up being implanted. This reduces a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant.
Doctors typically fertilize as many eggs as they can retrieve during an IVF cycle but, under possible civil penalty, they may only feel comfortable fertilizing a couple of eggs, forcing women to undergo several rounds of expensive egg retrievals. to achieve the same pregnancy rate that we were trying to achieve with a recovery.
Providers may also be forced to leave the state for fear of being sued or because of the high cost of storing excess embryos. IVF patients also have to pay fees to store embryos, ranging in amounts from $350 to $1,000 a year.
About one in five American women cannot get pregnant, and about a third have used fertility treatments or know someone who has. For women under 35, IVF is successful about 47 percent of the time.