According to the decision, people in Alabama could theoretically be sued for destroying a frozen embryo, raising questions about in-vitro fertilization.
After three miscarriages in less than a year, Gabby Goidel said she was diagnosed with unexplained genetic infertility.
For reasons that aren’t clear to doctors, any fetus she carries has a higher-than-average likelihood of genetic abnormalities, she said, so there is a slim chance she’d be able to carry a pregnancy to term without in-vitro fertilization.
To avoid the possibility of additional miscarriages, Goidel and her husband, Spencer, decided last year to pursue IVF in their home state of Alabama.
IVF allows doctors to test embryos for genetic abnormalities, then implant only the ones that are healthy.
The Goidels were on track to freeze embryos later this month, and they planned to only store the ones that were genetically normal.
But on Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF are considered children under state law, meaning people could theoretically be sued for destroying an embryo.
The Goidels began to worry whether they might be forced to store — or even use — embryos they had intended to discard.
There are some very frank discussions about how leaving may cause more harm to people who would otherwise have no medical care.
It places an unfair burden on the medical professionals because they now have to choose between their oaths (and reasons they joined the field) and their livelihoods (including their family).
It really sucks now, but will have some drastic effects 5 years from now when there’s an influx of unhealthy children with a severe lack of medical infrastructure to support them.