After Alabama rules that frozen embryos are children, some fertility patients pray that lawmakers find a solution.
Margaret Boyce was days away from her first appointment for IVF when Alabama made its rulingWhen Alabama's Supreme Court defined frozen embryos as children, the shock and confusion was immediate. Major hospitals pulled fertility services and would-be parents scrambled for clarity on what would happen next.
IVF is a difficult and lengthy treatment, involving the fertilisation of a woman's eggs with sperm in a lab to create a microscopic embryo. The fertilised embryo is then transferred into a woman's uterus, where it may create a pregnancy - but a successful outcome is not guaranteed. The people of Alabama, he wrote in a concurring opinion, had adopted a "theologically-based view of the sanctity of life" in their state constitution.Delving into religious sources from classic Christian theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas and also a modern conservative Christian manifesto, he concluded that "even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory".
"Nobody understands more that an embryo is not a child," she said, before taking a pause, "than the person yearning for that embryo to be a child." While the Alabama state Supreme Court is not appointed by the US president, more than 200 judges were appointed by Donald Trump to federal courts during his four-year term, winning him lasting support from American evangelicals.
Any sign of IVF being endangered could worsen the anger that's already cost Republicans since the fall of Roe v Wade, especially among suburban women and those who are uncomfortable with abortion bans. "But I think the pro-life community in general supports IVF, and I've known and worked with many people who have had children via IVF. And at the same time, they think abortion is wrong. This issue is so different from abortion, but it has to do with life."For patients in the deep-south state, the last week has been one of panicked phone calls to clinics, emails to local lawmakers and a rush by some to try and transfer frozen embryos out of the state.
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