Alabama governor Kay Ivey on Wednesday signed legislation into law which will protect in vitro fertilisation providers from potential legal liability after the state’s apex court ruling equated frozen embryos to children.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruling was based on civil liabilities for clinics and prompted an outcry from patients as well as other groups and forced three major IVF providers to pause services.
“I am pleased to sign this important, short-term measure into law so that couples in Alabama hoping and praying to be parents can grow their families through IVF,” Ivey said.
Republican Senator Tim Melson, who sponsored the bill, said he was “just elated to get these ladies back on schedule”.
The new law will protect the providers from lawsuits and criminal prosecution for the “damage or death of an embryo” during IVF services.
The Republicans in the Alabama state legislature proposed the lawsuit immunity in a bid to get clinics reopened. The Republicans however did not take up a bill to address the legal status of embryos.
The state’s three major IVF providers paused services after the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling last month.
The decision prompted an outcry from groups across the country. Patients in Alabama also shared stories about having upcoming embryo transfers abruptly cancelled and their paths to parenthood put in doubt.
“We have some transfers tomorrow and some Friday. This means that we will be able to do embryo transfers and hopefully have more pregnancies and babies in the state of Alabama,” Dr. Mamie McLean said after the vote, while speaking to the Associated Press.
Doctors from Alabama Fertility, one of the clinics that had paused IVF services, watched as the bill got final passage. They told the news agency that the passage will allow them to resume embryo transfers “starting tomorrow”.
The state Supreme Court had ruled that three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed in an accident at a storage facility could pursue wrongful death lawsuits for their “extrauterine children”. The ruling, treating an embryo the same as a child or gestating foetus under the wrongful death statute, raised concerns about civil liabilities for clinics.
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