The Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that embryos frozen during in vitro fertilization are children has caused a major health system to halt the practice and set off a nationwide debate.
Controversy has surrounded the procedure since the first baby was born through it in 1978. The public debate largely revolves around whether to consider the embryos created through the process as human lives.
Here is everything you need to know about IVF and how the practice is playing out in Alabama and beyond:
What is IVF?
IVF is an assisted reproductive technology meant to assist couples who have trouble conceiving a child naturally. The sperm of the male and eggs of the female are collected and joined in a laboratory dish, and the resulting fertilized embryo is implanted into the mother.
The primary ethical matter comes from the fact that in nearly all cases, many embryos are created, and only the most viable are selected. The unviable embryos are either donated, frozen, or discarded. It is the latter that draws the concerns of many, believing that destroying the embryos is murder.
Most Christian denominations are either critical of or opposed to IVF, driving much of the push against it. The Catholic Church explicitly condemns the practice, while others, such as the Orthodox Church, allow it but hold that intentionally destroying embryos created through the process is murder.
Advocates of the procedure argue it is a technological marvel allowing couples desiring children to accomplish this dream, something previously thought impossible.
What did the Alabama Supreme Court rule exactly?
The Alabama Supreme Court gave its ruling in a lawsuit by a group of IVF patients whose frozen embryos were destroyed in December 2020 after being accidentally dropped. The court sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act allowed parents to sue over the death of a young child, which “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”
“Unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics,” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in Friday’s majority opinion.
While the decision doesn’t criminalize IVF, the number of embryo casualties associated with the procedure is making clinics skittish, fearful of being held responsible for the death of a child, as deemed by Alabama’s Supreme Court. The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system has already announced it is halting the provision of IVF, with reproductive rights advocates fearful others will follow suit.
What does this mean going forward?
Alabama’s decision was met with polarized reactions nationwide. Many Republican figures hailed the decision as saving lives, while others derided it as an attack on reproductive rights.
Democrats have already drawn a straight line between the decision and the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) used the opportunity to push for her bill, introduced in January, that would protect IVF access.
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“For years — even before Roe was overturned — I’ve sounded the alarm that they’d come for IVF,” she said. “It’s started in Alabama, but we can’t wait for the next red state to decide how women can start their families until we take action. We must pass my bill to protect IVF access for all.”
Republicans appear less galvanized, as the procedure is not as well known as abortion.
