Federal legislation is needed to protect other states from the "legal chaos and uncertainty" brought by an Alabama Supreme Court ruling on in vitro fertilization, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Monday.
The court ruled last month that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. The decision was issued in a pair of wrongful death cases brought by three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic.
Justices, citing anti-abortion language in the Alabama Constitution, ruled that an 1872 state law allowing parents to sue over the death of a minor child “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”
Both chambers of the Alabama Legislature advanced bills last week that would shield clinics from prosecution and civil lawsuits following a political firestorm that erupted statewide and across the nation over the ruling.
At a press conference in Sunrise, Wasserman Schultz, who said her first son and daughter were conceived through IVF, slammed the Alabama court ruling.
“The Alabama Supreme Court just ruled that embryos are children, inflicting legal chaos and uncertainty onto doctors, fertility clinics and prospective parents there, and its misguided rhetoric is reverberating through other states,” said Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston.
She said she is concerned that IVF will become increasingly entangled in the debate over abortion, one of the top 2024 election issues.
“It's these anxious, desperate and frightened families who extreme Republicans are torturing by targeting IVF,” she said. “The emotional toll that in vitro fertilization treatments and the hope to start a family and the cycle of failure that often occurs is nothing less than torture.”
Joining Wasserman Schultz at the press conference was Stacey Lieberman, of Hollywood, who underwent six rounds of IVF after not being able to conceive naturally. She supports congressional efforts to allowing women access to IVF treatment.
"For many women like me over the age of 35 and trying to have a family, IVF may be our only option to have children," she said.
In 2013, after unsuccessfully trying IVF treatments, Lieberman adopted a child. Then in 2014, she gave birth to a girl conceived naturally.
Last year, she learned that she and her daughter are at high risk for ovarian and breast cancer due to BRCA gene mutations.
Lierberman said IVF treatments, including genetic testing, will be vital if her daughter wants to have children.
"They will want to implant only those embryos that do not carry the BRCA mutation, thereby removing from their future generations the increased risks of cancer," she said.
Wasserman Schultz invited Lieberman to join her in person to watch President Joe Biden's annual State of the Union address on Thursday night.
The latest Axios-Ipsos poll shows just one in three people support the view that frozen embryos can be considered "as people" and reject holding those who destroy them legally responsible. Republicans are divided, with only half believing frozen embryos are people, the poll found.
Access to Family Building Act
Wasserman Schultz called on her colleagues in Congress to pass the Access to Family Building Act, which seeks to codify the right of patients to access medical services that may be required for them to have children, including IVF.
“We cannot allow politicians to make health care decisions for women. Whether it’s abortion, contraception or other reproductive care, these decisions should be left to women and their doctors, period,” said the bill’s co-sponsor Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill in a press release.
Every year in the United States, nearly 2% of all babies born are conceived with the help of Assisted Reproductive Technology, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Following the Alabama ruling, the organization said that consequences of the policy outcomes mandates by the decision will be "profound," if allowed to stand. "Modern fertility care will be unavailable to the people of Alabama, needlessly blocking them from building the families they want,” the organization added in a press release.
The Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.
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