What Fertility Doctors Wish You Understood About IVF

On Friday, Feb. 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that several couples whose embryos had been destroyed when they were removed from a hospital freezer could sue for “wrongful death,” meaning the embryos are considered children in the eyes of the law.

The text of the ruling refers to embryos as “unborn life” and “extrauterine children,” arguing that each one is a person made in God’s image, per language enshrined in the state’s constitution.

Reproductive health care had already been curtailed in Alabama, which has some of the country’s most restrictive legislation regarding abortion. Abortion procedures are banned entirely, with limited exceptions to protect the life of the pregnant person.

In the wake of this recent ruling, Alabama residents are already losing access to IVF. The IVF program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has halted fertilizations and embryo transfers to protect doctors and patients from legal repercussions.

Hannah Echols, a spokesperson for the university, told HuffPost this week: “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.”

On Thursday, another clinic, Alabama Fertility Specialists, publicly announced that they, too, would halt their services. In their Facebook post announcing what they called an “impossibly difficult decision,” they wrote, “we are 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.”

On Friday, The Guardian reported that nationwide shipping services have announced they