SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
alabama supreme court
Florida Lawmakers Shelve 'Fetal Personhood' Bill After Alabama IVF Backlash
The bill would allow civil lawsuits over the "wrongful death" of an "unborn child," including in potential cases involving in vitro fertilization.
Feb 27, 2024
Florida Republicans are unlikely to pass a so-called "fetal personhood" bill during the current legislative session following a Senate committee's decision on Monday to postpone further consideration of the proposal, which had been approved by several committees before an Alabama Supreme Court ruling last week sparked a national uproar over the right-wing push to secure rights for "the unborn."
The panel said it was temporarily postponing Senate Bill 476, which would define a fetus as an "unborn child" with the protections of civil negligence laws. The proposal is aimed at making abortion providers and others who help secure abortion care for pregnant people liable in potential civil lawsuits.
Under the law, said opponents, prospective parents could also potentially seek damages in the "wrongful death" of an embryo, in the case of in vitro fertilization (IVF).
"Florida's legislature needs to really take a hard and careful look at what the unintended impacts to IVF in Florida could be going forward."
The proposal garnered national attention in recent days after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that IVF patients could sue a clinic for the "wrongful death" of embryos that were accidentally destroyed, with the court claiming embryos have the same rights as children.
Republicans have backpedaled since the ruling was announced, claiming to support IVF—even though attacks on fertility treatments are hardly a rarity in the anti-abortion rights movement. During her confirmation hearing in 2020, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett sparked rebuke by refusing to oppose criminalization of IVF.
Florida's legislative session ends March 8, and the Senate Rules Committee canceled a hearing for a companion bill that had been scheduled for Monday.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said that the Alabama ruling—but not genuine concern for the fact that IVF could be implicated in the bill—forced Republicans to shelve the proposal for now.
"‘If the Alabama ruling didn't happen last week, Florida's fetal personhood bills would likely have passed during legislative session," said Fried.
The public backlash over the ruling, said the state Democrats, "set an important tone with Republican lawmakers and sent a strong message that banning abortion and limiting a full range of reproductive healthcare is deeply unpopular."
The ACLU of Florida urged lawmakers to completely "shut down" the bill to prevent IVF clinics from shutting down for fear of liability due to the loss of embryos that is inherent in the IVF process.
"What we know from this past month in Alabama and what we've seen so far in Florida, is that anti-abortion extremists are not going to stop at a six-week ban, they are not going to stop with allowing frivolous civil lawsuits against providers and friends, and families, they are not going to stop with banning IVF," said Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel for the group. "Their goal is complete government control over any individual reproductive freedoms and this is one more step that takes them closer to that goal. Enough is enough."
"What was unthinkable a year ago is now a reality in Alabama," Gross added. "IVF clinics are pausing their operations. Florida's legislature needs to really take a hard and careful look at what the unintended impacts to IVF in Florida could be going forward."
Gross pointed out that Florida residents who suffer pregnancy loss "due to the wrongful acts of another are permitted to recover money damages" already—making the bill "unnecessary for that purpose."
In addition to opening IVF clinics up to liability, the bill would pave the way for cases like that of Texas resident Marcus Silva, who filed a civil lawsuit last year against friends of his ex-wife who helped her secure an abortion.
"This bill would have a chilling effect on doctors providing necessary healthcare," said Gross, "on patients seeking the care they need, and on family members and friends who support their loved one seeking access to abortion care."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Impact of Alabama Embryo Ruling Widens as GOP Attempts Damage Control
"I refuse to believe that Republican lawmakers who sponsored legislation that would restrict or ban IVF—and who now decry the Alabama ruling—didn't know exactly what they were doing," said one journalist.
Feb 23, 2024
Reproductive justice advocates on Friday rejected attempts by Republican lawmakers to distance themselves from an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that claimed embryos are "children"—a decision that critics said was a direct result of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade—as the far-reaching impact of the ruling became increasingly apparent.
In Alabama and across the country, Republican legislators in recent days have claimed they'll prioritize protections for in vitro fertilization (IVF) as clinics in the state have alerted patients they will not be able to proceed with their attempts to start or grow a family.
The clinics have cited what one critic called a "radically theocratic" state Supreme Court ruling this week that found couples have a right to sue a fertility center for "wrongful death" after their embryos were accidentally destroyed. The all-Republican court quoted the Bible as it ruled the embryos were classified as children.
The ruling, said the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Mobile on Thursday, "has sadly left us with no choice" but to halt all IVF treatment.
The clinic is one of just seven IVF facilities in the state and is the third to announce this week that it would have to suspend treatments because of the legal risk posed by the ruling. Because fertility doctors help prospective parents to conceive multiple embryos and the procedure has only a 50% success rate, numerous embryos are lost in the process—making clinics potentially liable for their "wrongful deaths" under the court ruling.
Alabama state lawmakers said Friday they were considering legislation to protect IVF, while the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a memo to senators advising them to "clearly state your support for IVF and fertility-related services as blessings for those seeking to have children," warning that a failure to do so could risk alienating "a staggering 85%" of voters who support increasing access to fertility treatments.
Despite the GOP's attempt to distance itself from the ruling, said Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern, "it is literally impossible to square these talking points with the Republican Party's position on 'equal rights' for 'the unborn' from 'the moment of fertilization!'"
Stern also pointed to U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.), who on Thursday shared her own experience with infertility and said IVF helped her to start a family.
While Steel may have personally benefited from fertility treatment, said Stern, it didn't stop her from co-sponsoring the Life at Conception Act, which would grant "equal rights" to the "preborn," including embryos—clearing implicating the IVF process if it were passed into law.
"I refuse to believe that Republican lawmakers who sponsored legislation that would restrict or ban IVF—and who now decry the Alabama ruling—didn't know exactly what they were doing," said Stern.
Beyond the halting of fertility treatments in Alabama this week, on Friday RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association warned that nationwide embryo shipping services have announced that they will suspend transport of embryos to and from Alabama to avoid potential litigation.
"Since the court's ruling, doctors have been forced to deliver devastating news to their patients, who dream of becoming parents and whose plans are on hold indefinitely, all because of the court's disregard for science," said Barbara Collura, president and CEO of the organization. "And now, this slight window of hope for Alabamans currently undergoing IVF to continue their family-building treatment in other states just slammed shut. Thousands of Alabamans trying to build their families are being held hostage by this destructive ruling. IVF must be restored in the state immediately, without fear of criminal prosecution."
Along with current GOP lawmakers, former Republican President Donald Trump—who secured the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court that overturned Roe and who is the presumptive GOP presidential nominee in the November election—said Friday that he supports "the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every state in America."
Democratic President Joe Biden's reelection campaign, however, laid the blame for the Alabama ruling with the former president, sending an email to supporters with a statement from Amanda Zurawski, who nearly died because doctors in Texas delayed providing her with abortion care when she faced pregnancy complications.
"If you're fortunate enough to have little to no experience with IVF, you don't know the layers of fear that are now compounding our ability to have a family," Zurawski told MSNBC on Friday. "This happened in Alabama and depending on what happens in November, this could be a nationwide situation. Trump has already said that he supports a nationwide abortion ban, and this is his fault."
"Because of the Supreme Court justices that he appointed and the fall of Roe, now states have the ability to pass these draconian laws," she added, "and we have no idea how far it's going to go, and that's what's absolutely terrifying."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Alabama University Pauses IVF Treatments After Court Rules Embryos Are 'Children'
"This cruel ruling, and the subsequent decision by UAB's health system, are horrifying signals of what's to come across the country," warned the head of one infertility group.
Feb 21, 2024
Alabama's leading medical school said Wednesday that it has paused in vitro fertilization procedures due to fear of prosecution after the state's highest court ruled that frozen embryos are "children."
"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," University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) spokesperson Hannah Echols toldAL.com, adding that she is "saddened" for patients seeking the treatment.
"Alabamans in the midst of seeking treatment have had their lives and their hopes and dreams crushed."
UAB's move follows Friday's
theology-ridden ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that embryos are "extrauterine children." Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Parker—who espoused Christian fundamentalist control of U.S. society during a recent interview with a QAnon conspiracy theorist—wrote in the ruling that "human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God."
Barbara Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, said in a statement that the organization is "absolutely heartbroken for the Alabama family building community."
"The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system—the largest healthcare system in the state—has been forced to make an impossible decision: Pause IVF procedures for those hoping to build their families, or put their patients and doctors at risk of prosecution," she added.
As AL.com's Amy Yurkanin explained:
There are many reasons families turn to IVF treatment. Some women may have blocked fallopian tubes that won't allow fertilized eggs to travel to the uterus. In other cases, families can carry genes that cause fatal diseases and may want to create embryos that can be tested. In those cases, families will transfer healthy embryos and may discard or donate those that carry genetic diseases.
"There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are right now in the middle of a physically and emotionally challenging medical process to fulfill their dream of a baby," Collura said. "Would-be parents have invested their hearts, time, and resources. Now, less than a week after the Alabama Supreme Court's devastating ruling, Alabamans in the midst of seeking treatment have had their lives and their hopes and dreams crushed."
"This cruel ruling, and the subsequent decision by UAB's health system, are horrifying signals of what's to come across the country," she added. "We will continue to fight to maintain and increase access to care for the 1 in 6 adults nationwide who struggle with infertility."
Calling the Alabama ruling "so deeply fucked up," HuffPost senior politics reporter Jennifer Bendery noted that former U.S. President Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner, "spent years putting people forward for lifetime federal judgeships who had grave concerns with fertility treatments like IVF and then Senate Republicans confirmed them."
"Anyone who knows about IVF treatments knows how financially and emotionally exhaustive this process can be," Bendery added. "And that it might not even work, after years of this. I feel for these Alabama women being turned away now as they're already going through this."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular