In recent days, Boston IVF, one of the country’s biggest fertility networks, has fielded calls from worried patients in abortion-ban states who are inquiring about moving their frozen embryos to a “safer” place.
“We’re hearing a lot of concern and fear from patients” that the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade could also affect fertility treatments, said Boston IVF’s CEO, David Stern.
Legal experts say the ruling doesn’t pose an immediate threat to in vitro fertilization, the nearly half-century-old technology that helps make possible about 2% of U.S. births.
Still, it opens the door to state-level laws that could crimp IVF procedures since the method typically involves generating — and often destroying — embryos that are never used.
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Among “people who take seriously the idea that life begins at the point of fertilization, it is logical for them to say that embryo destruction is a problem,” said I. Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in bioethics.
The main concern is not that state lawmakers will target IVF, he said, but that “the language they adopt to prohibit abortion may inadvertently create questions about the status of embryos.”
At issue are hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos left over from past IVF cycles, and more from cycles to come. Typically, would-be parents fertilize multiple eggs, then implant only one embryo. Choosing from among multiple embryos can improve odds of a successful pregnancy and a healthy baby. It can also result in discarding or storing some embryos for each cycle of in vitro fertilization.
The court ruling means new uncertainty that’s causing “a lot of angst in our community, both from professionals and from patients,” said Sean Tipton, spokesperson for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which held a virtual town hall on the decision Monday night for members.
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Members and their patients are seeking clarification on the legal status of eggs fertilized using IVF, said Tipton, but definitive answers are probably months away at best as new laws move through state legislatures.
Cohen, who co-authored
The fertility giant Inception, which has clinics around the country, is telling patients there’s no immediate cause for concern. “This ruling does not limit our ability to provide high-quality IVF services as we always have, and none of the ‘trigger laws’ taking effect in the states where we operate will do so either,” CEO TJ Farnsworth said in a statement. He didn't address the potential issue of embryo destruction.
But what if, some worry, a legislature blocks IVF unintentionally? What if it defines life as beginning at conception, and that means no embryos can ever be discarded?
Anti-abortion activists “are not in the mood to compromise. They are looking to slam that door shut as hard as they can,” said Tipton. “If infertility patients get their fingers stuck in that door, that’s perfectly OK with them.”
Some zealous anti-abortion activists could even specifically target IVF, said Barbara Collura, CEO of Resolve: The National Infertility Association.
“They don’t have the guardrails of Roe v. Wade anymore,” she said.
Resolve will be analyzing state-level bills and is asking members to be prepared to share their own infertility stories with legislators. “A lot of people have built their families through IVF, but nobody knows it,” Collura said.
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Boston IVF is developing a program to help patients who want to transfer embryos to Massachusetts, said Stern, the CEO. But for now the status quo is likely to prevail for patients.
“If they were doing IVF last week, they should continue to do IVF,” Collura said. “There isn’t any state that has said: ‘We’re stopping IVF.’”
