JACKSONVILLE, Fl. – Alabama’s largest hospital paused in vitro fertilization treatments this week as providers and patients across the state scrambled to assess the impact of a state supreme court ruling.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a decision critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatment in the state -- and beyond.
Alabama’s Supreme Court ruling has created “hysteria” and panic among local IVF patients, according to Dr. Sam Brown, medical director of Brown Fertility, which has offices in Jacksonville. He called the decision “a travesty.”
IVF involves harvesting a woman’s egg, fertilizing it with sperm in a lab and then implanting it in the woman’s uterus.
Some embryos are frozen for later use, in case an implanted embryo does not result in a pregnancy. Others are destroyed.
Brown has been directly involved in managing more than 30,000 IVF treatments and has more than 20 years of clinical experience.
He said Alabama’s Supreme Court justices do not understand enough about the treatments to realize their ruling suggesting a frozen embryo is a child is not right.
The justices ruled Wednesday after three couples filed a lawsuit against a storage facility that mistakenly destroyed their frozen embryos.
Brown explained that because of human nature and biology, only about one out of every four frozen embryos for a younger woman will result in a baby.
“The other three out of four are genetically abnormal and they won’t result in a baby, but you don’t know which ones are which,” he explained. “So, the problem with this ruling is they’re assuming each frozen embryo is a baby, and it’s not true. It’s just not accurate, and it leads to a lot of problems because what happens when those genetically abnormal ones don’t take or they don’t become a pregnancy?”
Brown said he’s concerned that doctors might be blamed or even charged with a crime.
“It’s just not accurate. It’s just not biologically right,” Brown said.
Brown said one in eight couples in the United States has infertility and a decision that prevents couples from having the procedure will impact a large majority of people who want nothing more than to have a child.
For perspective, more than 100,000 babies are born through IVF every year.
Brown is worried Alabama’s ruling could spill over to other states, like Florida.
“Every state has their own reproductive laws, and we’re very concerned that our lawmakers, our justices -- we’re concerned that they don’t understand the science well and they’re going to make really bad rulings like this that really affect (a large number of) patients,” he said.
Brown said he feels terrible for the women in Alabama who are in the middle of IVF treatments and can no longer receive care because the hospital where they were being treated has suspended the practice.
The process can take months and depending upon insurance coverage can be very expensive.