When Republicans in Alabama enacted a law earlier this year to protect in vitro fertilization, following a court ruling that halted the treatment in the deeply conservative state, they presented it as a temporary solution.
They promised to revisit the issue before the state Legislature adjourned and promised to work on a bill that they said would serve to protect long-term in vitro fertilization in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court has ruled that embryos are children. – a decision that created a national uproar.
They never did that.
The difficult deadline for action this year came and went as the GOP-controlled Legislature adjourned this week ahead of the May 20 scheduled date to do so.
After signing the bill to protect IVF in March, Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey called it a “short-term measure” in a statement and said she predicted “there will be more work to come.” .
State Rep. Terri Collins, a Republican who was the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, said on the House floor during the debate that preceded its final passage that after the legislation passed, it would be the right time to “look at the question and see what we need to look at.
“Do we need to analyze a constitutional amendment and put it on the next vote? Can we adjust this within our own laws and be satisfied?” she said at the time.
“My goal has been to try to find some compromise,” Collins continued. “Then we can slow down, look at all the options and make the best decisions.”
“We are looking at several different avenues to move forward, even in this session,” she said.
The saga began when the state’s conservative Supreme Court ruled in February that embryos are considered children, prompting the state’s IVF clinics to suspend their services.
The decision sparked massive protests in Alabama and across the U.S., including a call from former President Donald Trump to resolve the issue “swiftly,” sending state lawmakers scrambling to find a solution.
But the bill that lawmakers hastily drafted and approved did not address any of the central issues raised by the court’s ruling.
The narrowly tailored bill, which passed with bipartisan support in both legislative chambers, is designed to protect doctors, clinics and other healthcare professionals who provide IVF treatment and services by offering these workers civil and criminal law, stating that “no action, lawsuit, or criminal proceeding for injury to or death of an embryo shall be brought or maintained against any individual or entity when providing or receiving services related to in vitro fertilization.”
To the chagrin of many Republican and Democratic lawmakers, the enacted legislation failed to define or clarify whether, under state law, frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization have the same rights as children.
Many of the bill’s Republican supporters said its purpose was to serve as a short-term solution designed to allow the reopening of clinics in the state that have suspended their services.
“Opening the clinics was our priority,” Collins said during one of his speeches.
But the enacted bill did not even achieve this.
While two of the state’s three major IVF clinics that paused care said they would resume services quickly, the third — the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Mobile Infirmary, the fertility clinic involved in the lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court ruling of Alabama – said services would remain stopped. Later, he said he would completely suspend IVF services at the end of the year for fear of future litigation.
Collins, as well as GOP leaders in the state Senate and state House, did not respond to questions about why Republicans never revisited the issue in the 2024 session.
A spokesperson for Ivey said his office will continue to monitor the situation.
“In March, following a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, the Alabama Legislature worked to pass legislation that would help provide assurances to clinics in our state so they would feel confident in resuming IVF services, and the governor quickly signed the bill into law,” Ivey’s spokesperson said. Gina Maiola said. “Now, we will continue to closely monitor and study the issue as IVF services advance in Alabama.”
Democrats in the Legislature introduced competing measures during and after debates over the bill that was ultimately enacted, but neither ever advanced.
Those included bills that sought to explicitly clarify that an embryo “outside the uterus” is not “considered a fetus”. House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels also introduced a proposal constitutional amendment include a provision that “an extrauterine embryo” – the term used in the state Supreme Court ruling – “is not an ‘unborn life’ or ‘unborn child.’”
Reproductive rights groups have criticized Alabama Republicans for not revisiting the issue.
“The short-term measure passed was really just a Band-Aid for resuming IVF care and for clinics to reopen,” said Betsy Campbell, director of engagement at RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. “But there is still that shadow of [state] The Supreme Court’s ruling that embryos have the same rights as living children affects both providers and patients.”
“There needs to be a long-term solution: legislation that addresses the status of embryos and is based on scientific and evidence-based information about what happens during reproduction and IVF,” Campbell added. “Lawmakers need to finish the job.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
