Alabama lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday to protect in vitro fertilization providers from civil and criminal liability. That put an end to their fight to approve fertility treatment after a state Supreme Court ruling ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children.
Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, immediately signed the bill.
Two major clinics said they may resume treatments in the coming days, while another clinic said it was unsure about the extent of protection and would wait for “legal clarification.”
Lawmakers and legal experts acknowledged that the law fails to address the existential questions raised by the court about the definition of personality and leaves open the prospect of legal challenges in the future.
The overwhelming approval – 81 to 12 with nine abstentions in the House of Representatives and 29 to 1 in the Senate – came barely two weeks after the ruling. It showed Republicans’ deep urgency to protect IVF treatments, even if that meant sidestepping the thorny contradictions between their promises to protect unborn life and fertility treatment practices.
“It’s tears of joy, it’s a sigh of relief just knowing we’re protected,” said Stormie Miller, a mother from Hoover, Alabama, who gave birth to twins through IVF and has two remaining frozen embryos. Speaking about the future of these embryos, she added: “We can make that decision ourselves and don’t need someone to make that decision for us.”
Reproductive medicine in the state was thrown into turmoil by the court’s ruling involving a group of families who filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2020 over the accidental destruction of their embryos at a Mobile clinic. But the court’s interpretation of Alabama law that frozen embryos should be considered children — coupled with a passionate, theologically-driven opinion from the chief justice — sowed fear of civil and criminal liability among doctors and clinics and raised concerns about the consequences , if other states take a similar stance.
At least three major clinics suspended IVF treatments and an embryo transport company ceased operations in the state. Patients who said they were already exhausted by the financial, physical and emotional toll of treatment pleaded with lawmakers to protect their chance to start families.
And from Montgomery to Washington, Republicans were suddenly struggling to publicly endorse IVF treatments, with some lawmakers sharing their own fertility stories and others calling for a quick legislative fix. The party was already struggling to respond to voters’ concerns about strict anti-abortion laws in a closely contested presidential year, and President Biden and Democrats cast the ruling as another sign that Republicans are reaching too far into women’s lives .
But Republicans in Alabama did not address whether a frozen embryo conceived outside the uterus should be considered a human. Instead, they quickly negotiated a measure that broadly shields clinics and IVF providers from civil and criminal liability and limits carriers’ liability to damages to cover “the price paid for the affected in vitro cycle.”
“The problem we’re trying to solve right now is getting these families back on track so they can move forward with their desire to have children,” said state Rep. Terri Collins, the lead sponsor of the measure in the House. “Do we need to address this problem? Probably.”
“I don’t want to define life – that’s too important to me, to my faith,” added Ms. Collins, who previously led the push for an abortion ban in the House of Representatives in 2019. “But we have to decide where we start protecting, and that’s something I think we need to talk about.”
Infirmary Health Systems and the Center for Reproductive Medicine, the clinic and doctors involved in the wrongful death lawsuit, said they would not resume IVF treatments yet.
“At this time, we believe the law fails to address the fertilized eggs currently being stored across the state, creating challenges for physicians and fertility clinics trying to help families in need create their own “To have children,” the statement said.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System said it would “immediately resume IVF treatments” but would “continue to assess developments and advocate for protection.”
Some lawmakers opposed the bill, expressing reservations about whether patients would be able to file negligence lawsuits against doctors and clinics. And some conservatives struggled with whether supporting a treatment opposed by the Catholic Church and other religious organizations went too far.
“I’m for IVF – it’s all about embryo treatment and how we deal with it, and I feel like we need more time to work on it,” said state Sen. Dan Roberts, one of two Republicans who spoke Tuesday abstained from voting in a committee vote. He asked, “Does this embryo have a soul or not?”
Ms. Collins and other senior Republicans suggested forming a task force to further discuss the issue. However, it was unclear whether this would be enough to clear up the unclear legal and largely unregulated landscape for IVF treatments.
“The question this bill answers is, ‘Are our fertility clinics liable?’” said Clare Ryan, a family law professor at the University of Alabama. “It doesn’t address these larger questions: What is the child? When does the act of conception take place? What role does uterine implantation play?”
Leaders of conservative, religious and anti-abortion groups, including the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group and the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, had signed a letter urging Ms. Ivey to veto the bill to “make a hasty reaction to a troubling situation.”
Lawmakers, the groups wrote, “must resist an ideology that treats humans as expendable commodities” and “take into account the millions of lives that face the fate of either being thrown away or frozen indefinitely, denying their inherent dignity.” “hurt.” to be human.”
The state Supreme Court’s ruling also relied on a constitutional amendment approved by Alabama voters in 2018 to “recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children,” reflecting language used by groups are represented who are against abortion rights. With that language now enshrined in Alabama’s 1901 Constitution, some experts said the new shield law would likely face additional legal challenges.
“Republicans created this chaos for themselves, and now they are trying to contain the resulting damage without dealing with the chaos itself,” said Susan Pace Hamill, a law professor at the University of Alabama who specializes in the Constitution Alabama specializes. She added: “They are doing backflips to avoid directly disrupting the testimony of the Alabama Supreme Court.”
Democrats had proposed both a constitutional amendment and a measure that explicitly contradicted the ruling’s definition of personality. But Republicans, who hold a supermajority, instead focused on their measure, including a provision that makes immunity retroactive to any case or situation that had not yet been litigated at the time the law was passed.
“We are creating more problems — we have to face the elephant in the room,” said Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa.
But for the women and some doctors who had been in limbo for an agonizing two weeks, the bill’s passage was a welcome relief, and a few people in the gallery applauded as the bill passed the House.
Three doctors from provider Alabama Fertility sat in a row at a key Senate committee hearing Tuesday and reflected on what the past two weeks have been like since they stopped IVF treatments at their clinics across the state. They had spent hours deciphering the latest developments in legislation and having heart-wrenching conversations with their patients.
“She’s just sobbing, ‘I want my baby,'” Dr. recalled. Mamie McLean in a conversation. “I usually have something to say. I had nothing to say because we feel it.”
But the draft law before them means, according to the doctors, that they can start working again on Thursday. And that experience made them realize that perhaps they needed to spend more time talking to lawmakers about their work.
“We must now view this as an extension of our duty to our patients,” said Dr. Michael C. Allemand, adding, “This was an eye-opener.”
Jan Hoffman and Sarah Kliff contributed reporting.
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2024-03-07 04:04:06
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