Frozen Embryos Are Children? Reproductive Care in Peril After Alabama Supreme Court Ruling

The Alabama Supreme Court has sent shockwaves through the world of reproductive healthcare, relying on anti-abortion language inserted into the state Constitution in 2018 about “rights of the unborn child” to rule that frozen embryos are children. Now Alabama’s largest hospital has paused in vitro fertilization treatments as it studies the impact of the ruling, which could set a template for other states to restrict IVF and other medical care. “It was just very shocking,” says Angela Granger, an IVF patient who previously received treatment in Alabama and who had been considering returning to the state for future rounds of IVF to get pregnant again. “I just don’t trust what’s going on to be able to go back at this point.” We also speak with Barbara Collura, president of the infertility patient advocacy group RESOLVE, who says the Alabama ruling will have far-reaching implications. “It’s going to terrify people all across the country that this might happen in their state,” says Collura, who describes embryos as a “microscopic group of cells” not even visible to the human eye. “We do not look at that as a person, as a child or as a baby.”