Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on Wednesday signed into law legislation to protect healthcare providers from civil and criminal liability in the wake of the state's Supreme Court court ruling that frozen embryos are considered children.
The swift signing of the short-term bill facilitates the continuation of in-vitro fertilization services, some of which were halted after the Feb. 16 decision that meant anyone who destroyed embryos could be liable for wrongful death. The ruling had put Alabama patients and IVF providers in legal limbo and triggered concerns that it paves the way for other states to impose similar measures.
Read more: What Alabama's IVF ruling will mean for employees seeking fertility care
"Alabama works to foster a culture of life, and that certainly includes IVF," Ivey said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, noting the bill had garnered widespread support in the legislature. "IVF is a complex issue, no doubt, and I anticipate there will be more work to come, but right now, I am confident that this legislation will provide the assurances our IVF clinics need and will lead them to resume services immediately."
Beyond the immediate practical implications for clinics and prospective parents, Alabama's moves are expected to reignite debate over the definition of "personhood" in reproductive health care. That's likely to reverberate widely as reproductive rights come under threat in a growing number of states in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Read more: Employees need more than IVF to start a family
It's already a hot-button political issue, with Democrats urging quick legislative action to protect IVF on a federal level and many Republicans saying that power belongs to the states.
February's decision was handed down in two wrongful death lawsuits filed by three sets of parents whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed while being stored at a fertility clinic in Mobile. A judge had dismissed the claims, ruling the embryos don't meet the definition of a person. But Alabama's high court reversed that order and said any "unborn child" is a person under state law, "regardless of that child's viability or stage of development."
