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Anonymous ID: e251ca Feb. 21, 2024, 6:53 a.m. No.20451349   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1540 >>1544 >>1605 >>1675

Alabama’s supreme court ruled embryos are ‘extrauterine children’. IVF patients are worried

 

“They’re worried about what to do with their frozen embryos. They want to be the ones who make the decisions on how best to utilize their embryos – not the supreme court,” said McLean, who provides IVF as part of her work as an OB-GYN at Alabama Fertility, which has three locations in the state. McLean said she has spoken to more than a dozen of her patients over the last 48 hours, but: “Frankly, because of the lack of guidance, we don’t we don’t know exactly how this translates to our care.”

 

Since each created embryo is now a person in the eyes of the law, the Alabama ruling casts multiple parts of the IVF process into legal jeopardy. Providers may no longer be able to freeze, thaw, transfer or test embryos using best medical practices. People also frequently make more embryos than they use, and it is unclear if Alabamians would be able to ever dispose of those embryos under the supreme court ruling.

 

The consequences could even pose an existential threat to IVF in Alabama, as providers and patients may flee the state rather than risk liability flowing from the ruling.

 

“It’s a nonsensical ruling with devastating consequences for the health of the people in Alabama,” said Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. “The court, of course, didn’t deign to deal with the real-world implications of their decision, but they are profound.”

 

During a typical IVF process, providers use medication to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs, which are then extracted. Experts in a laboratory fertilize the eggs with sperm to create embryos. Doctors may then transfer an embryo or two into the patient’s uterus, or freeze embryos for future use.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/21/alabama-ivf-embryo-extrauterine-children-ruling