Alabama university pauses IVF treatments after court ruling

By AFP 21 February 2024, 10:01 pm

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A scientific researcher handles frozen embryonic stem cells in a laboratory, at the Univestiry of Sao Paulo's human genome research center, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on March 4, 2008. (MAURICIO LIMA / AFP)

An Alabama university temporarily has halted in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments after the high court in the southern US state ruled that frozen embryos outside the womb are “children.”

Hannah Echols, a spokeswoman for the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), says in a statement to local media that the school was “saddened” by the impact the move would have on patients seeking 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,” Echols tells AL.com.

The university decision to pause IVF procedures comes just days after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling in a lawsuit filed against a fertility clinic, under the state’s 1872 Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

The suit was filed by three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed by a patient who “managed to wander into” a cryogenic nursery where they were stored and accidentally dropped several of them on the floor.

A lower court ruled the frozen embryos could not be considered a “person” or “child” and dismissed the wrongful-death claim.

But the Alabama Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling Friday, disagreed, saying “the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies on its face to all unborn children, without limitation.”