The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday against storing embryos in Mobile for preventing future generations from storing them in the United States based on anti-abortism
Three couples from Alabama brought this case to the state’s highest court in order to prevent others from storing frozen embryos in Mobile. They had used IVF, or in vitro fertilization, to create embryos that were then frozen for them to be able to use at a later date. That’s standard procedure in IVF clinics in the United States, where clinics prefer harvesting as many eggs at a time in order to increase the odds of getting even one egg that is healthy enough to be fertilized and put back into a woman’s uterus.
“Unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics,” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in Friday’s majority ruling by the all-Republican court.
The ruling brought a rush of warnings about the potential impact on fertility treatments and the freezing of embryos, which had previously been considered property by the courts.
Sean Tipton, spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said that one Alabama fertility clinic has been told to stop in-clinic fertilization procedures immediately due to the decision.
On the same day she began injections for her eggs, a court ruling came down forcing her to abandon her IVF treatment in Alabama.
“It just kind of took me by by storm. It was like all I could think about and it was just a very stressful thing to hear. I immediately messaged my clinic and asked if this could potentially halt us. Goidel said that they had to take it one day at a time.
The lawyer for the fertility clinic that is part of the lawsuit said they have no further comment at this time.
An anti-abortion group cheered the decision. The founder of Live Action said each person, from the smallest embryo to an elder nearing the end of his life, has incalculable value and deserves legal protection.
The Alabama Supreme Court decision partly hinged on anti-abortion language added to the Alabama Constitution in 2018, stating it is the “policy of this state to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child.”
There was a full dissent filed by Justice Greg Cook, who disagreed with the majority opinion and stated that the 1872 law was no longer true to its original intent of covering frozen embryos.
The supporters said that it had no impact unless states gained more control over abortion access. States gained control of abortion access in 2022.
The Alabama decision reflected on the consequences of the Supreme Court striking down the contraceptives law, but blamed Republican elected officials for blocking access to reproductive and emergency care.
The president and vice president will demand that Congress restore the right to abortion in federal law for all women, according to Jean-Pierre.
IVF in Alabama is a Person’s First Choice: The Case of a Case Study With a Lossy Fertilizer
Critics have long urged the state legislature to spell out exactly who falls under the state’s wrongful death statute. The Supreme Court says that life begins at fertilization, regardless of whether the life is in a woman’s uterus or in a freezer.
In the state where prosecutors have arrested pregnant women taking drugs that are harmful to a fetus, anyone who’s been following the Alabama abortion debate shouldn’t have been surprised. Alabama outlaws all abortions, making no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
All fertilized eggs in the state have personhood rights. And even in states that allow the prosecution of women who put the health of their fetuses at risk, most do not apply that prosecution statute to pregnancies before the 24th week. That is when most doctors consider the fetus to be able to survive outside the womb.
The security of the hospital that was storing the embryos went wrong, what went wrong is related to that. A random patient got into the lab and stole the embryos, which were destroyed by them.
It is ironic that the lawsuit filed by the three couples who were upset that their embryos were destroyed might make it more difficult for them to conceive naturally.
The professor of law at UC Davis breaks down the possible legal implication for how in fertilization is done.
Chang: If the ruling in this case was very much confined to Alabama state law, as you describe, what are the wider implications of this ruling for people who don’t live in Alabama? What do you see?
He said: Ziegler: Well, if embryos are persons under this ruling, that could have pretty profound downstream complications for how IVF is performed. More fertilized eggs are created in IVF than are implants, but they’re often stored, donated or destroyed because of the beliefs of the people interested in the procedure. If an embryo is a person, it’s obviously not clear that it’s permissible to donate that embryo for research, or to destroy it. It may not even be possible to create embryos you don’t implant in a particular IVF cycle.
The man is named Ziegler Well, if Alabama IVF providers feel obligated to implant every embryo they create, that’s likely to both reduce the chances that any IVF cycle will be successful. It could make it more expensive. IVF is already very expensive. I think the average being between about $15,000 and $20,000 per IVF cycle. Some people don’t succeed with IVF after a single cycle. But if you were not allowed to create more than one embryo per cycle, that’s likely to make IVF even more financially out of reach for people who don’t have insurance coverage, and who struggle to pay that hefty price tag.