The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), an academic medical center, has suspended its IVF treatments in order to consider the legal repercussions of the decision, made by the state’s Supreme Court, ruling that embryos are in fact children.
The ruling was made in the context of a case where a person had wandered into an unlocked storage area at a fertility clinic and dropped several frozen embryos on the floor.
The court determined that failing 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 offence – because the frozen embryos were considered human beings.
The ruling has left both IVF providers and patients unsure of how the law might be interpreted in future cases.
Some said treating the embryo as a child – rather than property – could have broader implications and call into question many of the practices of IVF – can a person be frozen, some ask? Or worse yet – it may come to punitive measures for those who undertook the previously unproblematic procedure.
UAB will continue to offer egg retrieval, the process of collecting eggs from one or both ovaries – but will no longer fertilize eggs or develop embryos.
The Medical Association of Alabama has called for the state supreme court to reconsider or suspend its ruling so residents can have continued access to IVF.
„The ruling has already forced UAB, the largest healthcare system in the State of Alabama, to stop providing IVF services to Alabama couples. Others will likely do the same, leaving little to no alternatives for reproductive assistance,” the association pointed out in a statement. It added that the decision „will likely lead to fewer babies – children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins – as fertility options become limited for those who want to have a family”.
In short, critics warn that the decision could make fertility treatment prices prohibitive for many families and could discourage medical providers from performing infertility treatments.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Wednesday sided with the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death.
“I mean, I think embryos, to me, are babies”, Haley said during a pull aside interview with NBC News as she described that she used artificial insemination to have her son, a different process than in vitro fertilization (IVF). Haley later attempted to clarify those remarks but reiterated her stance that she believes an embryo is “an unborn baby”, pointing out that she didn’t say that she agreed with the Alabama ruling.
While the unprecedented ruling does not prohibit IVF, it is the first known case in which a US court said frozen embryos are human beings.
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