Alabama lawmakers advance IVF legislation

Mar. 2—Both the Alabama House and Senate have advanced almost identical bills in hopes of protecting in vitro fertilization after several hours of heated debate Thursday.

The bills come on the heels of an Alabama Supreme Court ruling which determined frozen embryos should be considered children under the state's wrongful death law and that people could be prosecuted for destroying embryos.

The decision received national criticism after the majority of the state's IVF clinics halted services due to the fear of further civil or criminal prosecution. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and presidential candidate Donald Trump have called for a swift resolution to the situation.

Both bills provide broad immunity to IVF providers and patients in the event that an embryo is damaged or destroyed. The bill states:

"No action, suit, or criminal prosecution for the damage to or death of an embryo shall be brought or maintained against any individual or entity when providing or receiving goods or services related to in vitro fertilization."

An amendment from Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison to the Senate bill would only provide immunity for IVF services, but not goods.

Alabama House Democrats were the first to file a bill which would clarify that "extrauterine" embryos should not be considered children for the purposes of state law, a provision which is established in the 2019 Human Life Protection Act. That bill was never presented to the House Healthcare Committee.

Speaking to The Times by phone Thursday evening, Rep. Tim Wadsworth said that he was "100% pro-life," but personally felt as though the court's ruling was "ludicrous."

"To me, they didn't use common sense in saying that an embryo is a child. It's nearly there, but I don't agree that it a child at that point," Wadsworth said.

He declined to comment on the Democrat's bill, but said that the immunity given to IVF providers in the bill, passed by the House, was similar to the immunity granted to police officers.

"This doesn't change anything other that it says that the businesses and the individuals involved with IVF won't have any civil or criminal penalties," he said.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton was critical of the bill's lack of clarity and its limited protections for a mother's decision of what to do with any unused embryos after receiving IVF treatment. It is unclear how many embryos are frozen in Alabama, but national estimates by the national embryo donation center say there are more than a million across the country.

"I'm talking about those eggs that a woman has left over, which is life. What do we do with those? How is that mother protected when the doctor asks her what she wants to do? She can't donate them anymore because that's life, she's got to adopt them or something, they're babies now," Singleton said.

The bill's sponsor Sen. Tim Melson struggled to provide Singleton a satisfactory answer and said the bill was only intended to address the immediate issue of resuming IVF treatments and would need to be revisited in the future.

"This is the temporary fix. You [Singleton] make a great point and it's a great question," Meson said. "This gets the ladies who are currently in limbo now back in the clinics, but I promise I will find the answer."

Coleman-Madison offered an amendment with similar language to the bill filed by House Democrats. The amendment was tabled at Melson's suggestion.

The House and Senate will now need to vote on a unified version of the bills before sending it to Gov. Ivey.

Rep. Randall Shedd was unavailable to speak with The Times Wednesday, but followed up with a text message which said, "We are working on a swift solution to the IVF crisis and it is top priority."

Sen. Garlan Gudger did not return messages left by The Times for comment by press time.