The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system is pausing in vitro fertilization treatments so it can evaluate potential consequences for giving treatment after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that a frozen embryo is a human.
The treatments are paused as the hospital system evaluates “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,” spokesperson Savannah Koplon said in a statement to Forbes.
In vitro fertilization, or IVF, is a process in which doctors extract eggs and fertilize them outside of the body to create embryos that can be placed back in the uterus, and while “egg fertilization and embryo development” are paused, Koplon said, UAB clinics are still able to do the steps “through egg retrieval.”
The ruling does not ban in vitro fertilization procedures, but allows a state law that lets parents sue over a child’s wrongful death to apply to frozen embryos, meaning if embryos were discarded or became damaged—both of which can happen through the IVF process—clinics could be sued for wrongful death.
UAB is the first clinic in Alabama to say it is pausing the procedure, according to AL.com.
In a ruling released Friday, the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court said frozen embryos are children, with Justice Jay Mitchell writing: “Unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she agreed with the Alabama court’s ruling, telling NBC News: “Embryos, to me, are babies.”
The decision in Alabama stemmed from a case in which three couples brought lawsuits alleging wrongful death of a minor over frozen embryos that were accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling. A trial court granted the clinic’s request to dismiss the wrongful death claims, ruling that “[t]
Justice Greg Cook, the sole Alabama Supreme Court judge who dissented, wrote in his opinion that the decision will take away the opportunity to have children from “many Alabama citizens praying to be parents.” He wrote that “no rational medical provider would continue to provide services for creating and maintaining frozen embryos knowing that they must continue to maintain such frozen embryos forever or risk the penalty of a Wrongful Death Act claim for punitive damages.”