For immediate release
Contact: media@pregnancyjusticeus.org
(Updated on March 7 to reflect the signing of the law)
NEW YORK — On March 6, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law that carves out IVF providers and patients from legal liability. This comes after the state legislature rushed to adopt HB 237/SB 159 following the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that an 1872 state law providing a cause of action for the “wrongful death of a minor” applied to, as the plaintiffs put it, “embryonic children” — embryos created through in vitro fertilization that have been cryogenically frozen.
Statement from Pregnancy Justice President Lourdes A. Rivera
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed a bill into law that provides immunity from civil and criminal liability for IVF providers and patients, but we must not lose sight of the fact that this does nothing to address the crisis that fetal and embryonic personhood has wrought on their state. It does absolutely nothing to limit the encroachment of fetal and embryonic personhood in state civil and criminal law, nor does it address the Alabama Supreme Court’s determination that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children.”
Meanwhile, the state continues to ignore Alabama women and pregnant people who are begging to have their personhood respected, begging to have their health care needs met, begging to have their humanity restored, and begging for support for their families instead of having their families torn apart.
This current crisis brought on by fetal personhood began over a decade ago, when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos and fetuses are children under state criminal child abuse laws. That decision opened the floodgates to the surveillance, reporting, and criminalization of pregnant Alabamians — close to 650 cases even before Roe was overturned — and helped usher in a total ban on abortion.
While restoring access to IVF is critical, it is not enough to prevent the ongoing, devastating harms to pregnant people and their families. Alabama lawmakers must reckon with the fact that bestowing personhood on fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses, cannot coexist with the personhood of the people who are pregnant or want to be pregnant and if they have any interest in reestablishing the rights of half of their constituents. They must ultimately repeal the “Sanctity of Life” amendment to the state constitution.
And perhaps they should focus their attention on adopting laws and policies that would address the state’s poor maternal and infant mortality rates. That would be time and resources well spent.
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Pregnancy Justice works to ensure that no one loses their rights because of their capacity for pregnancy or pregnancy outcome, focusing on people who are most at risk of state control and criminalization: those who are low-income, of color, or use drugs.