A decision by the Alabama Supreme Court has left providers and patients unsure of whether parts of the in vitro fertilization process put them at legal risk.
Less than a week after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos created through in vitro fertilization are considered children, three IVF providers in the state have suspended services as they consider the legal repercussions of the decision.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham was first to announce the change on Wednesday. Then another practice, Alabama Fertility, posted a statement Thursday on social media saying it would put a hold on IVF treatments. The Center for Reproductive Medicine at Mobile Infirmary — the clinic sued in the court case — said Thursday that it would pause IVF procedures starting Saturday.
“We understand the burden this places on deserving families who want to bring babies into this world,” said Mark Nix, CEO of Infirmary Health, the system that includes Mobile Infirmary.
In its statement, Alabama Fertility said it was trying to find solutions for affected patients and “working as hard as we can to alert our legislators as to the far reaching negative impact of this ruling on the women of Alabama.”
Hannah Echols, a spokesperson for UAB, said that health system will continue to offer egg retrieval but will no longer fertilize eggs or develop embryos.
“We are saddened that this will impact our patients’ attempt to have a baby through IVF, but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments,” Echols said in a statement.
The practice of IVF involves combining sperm and eggs in a lab to create embryos, then implanting one or more of those embryos in a person’s uterus. Extra embryos are often frozen and stored; however, embryos are also frequently discarded if they have genetic abnormalities or if patients do not need to use them.
Because of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, IVF providers now fear they or their patients could face legal penalties if they discard any embryos.
However, many questions remain about the ruling’s implications. The judges’ decision came in response to a unique case in which a person wandered into an unlocked storage area at Mobile Infirmary in Mobile, Alabama, and dropped several frozen embryos on the floor.
The court determined on Feb. 16 that the clinic’s failure to secure that storage area violated the state’s Wrongful Death Act — which says an unjustified or negligent act that leads to someone’s death is a civil offense — because the frozen embryos were considered human beings.
Meghan Cole, a patient at Alabama Fertility, has a rare blood disorder that prevents her from safely carrying children, so she had been planning to start a family through IVF and surrogacy. The surrogate set to carry Cole’s baby was supposed to receive an embryo implantation on Friday.
But last night, Cole’s doctor called to tell her the implantation appointment had been canceled. Now she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to use her embryos.
“I thought it was going to be one of the best days of our lives tomorrow, and now we’re just devastated,” she said.
However, other fertility practices in the state continue to offer IVF, hoping the legal confusion will resolve in their favor soon.
“We’re not pausing our IVF services. I don’t see a reasonable need to do that,” said Dr. Brett Davenport, a reproductive endocrinologist at Fertility Institute of North Alabama.
“I have been working hard on adjusting our consent forms so that we can have a discussion with the patients who are now going through IVF or about to have an embryo transfer to where they now are aware of this law, they’re aware of the implications,” he added.
Three Alabama Facilities Pause IVF Services Over Court Rules That Embryos Are Children
