New law gives cover to patients, providers

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday signed a bill to protect providers and patients doing in vitro fertilization from legal liability if embryos they create are damaged or destroyed, a move that comes weeks after a state Supreme Court ruling threatened the treatment’s use.

The bill, signed by the Republican governor into law less than three weeks after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos are people and individuals could be held liable for destroying them, grants criminal and civil immunity “for death or damage to an embryo” related to IVF. The unprecedented court ruling alarmed medical professionals and reproductive rights advocates, who warned it would jeopardize IVF access. Several providers halted IVF treatments within days of the decision.

Ivey has been vocal about protecting IVF, joining Republicans across the country who have defended the treatment, distancing themselves from the ruling.

In a statement late Wednesday, the Republican governor applauded the state legislature for what she called a “stop-gap measure” that will allow fertility clinics that had closed after the ruling to reopen.

“Let me say clearly: Alabama supports growing families through IVF,” Ivey said. “From protecting the unborn to supporting IVF, Alabama is proud we are a pro-life, pro-family state.”

The University of Alabama at Birmingham, which stopped treatments after the ruling, said in a statement after Ivey signed the legislation into law it was “moving to promptly resume” treatments. Another clinic, Alabama Fertility, also announced it would resume treatments this week.

The law also shields “manufacturers of goods used to facilitate” IVF or the transport of embryos from criminal charges, but it stops short of providing blanket immunity for those companies.

While the law grants legal immunity to clinics that provide IVF treatments, it does not stipulate whether frozen embryos are people, as the Alabama Supreme Court said in its ruling.

During debates before the bill was sent to Ivey’s desk, Alabama lawmakers acknowledged that even with the legislation, the state still had questions to contend with, including about personhood and when life begins. Alabama last defined when life begins in a 2018 constitutional amendment that protected the “rights of unborn children” and was cited in the court ruling last month.