No more IVF in Alabama?

[George K]

The background of the case:

NRO's interpretation:

Last, if you spent any time this week casually following the Alabama IVF case, where a court ruled that frozen embryos are children under state law, you’ll probably be shocked to learn the insane details of what prompted such an opinion. The case heard by the judge involved an IVF-capable facility that failed to protect human embryos from a rogue patient who wandered into the room, accessed the freezer, and then accidentally dropped the embryos on the ground, killing them all. The case sought to answer the question: If an organization’s negligence allows for a random actor to kill human embryos, do the parents of said embryos have standing to sue the organization?

At CNN, a morning anchor alleged that a doctor had accidentally dropped a dish.

[Axtremus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/02/25/cancer-ivf-alabama-embryos/

Cancer patients getting worried as well ... since cancer and some of its treatments may adversely impact fertility, some cancer patients turn to freezing their embryos before their cancer gets worse or before they undergo certain aggressive treatments as a way to preserve the option to reproduce later. This may not be a viable option in Alabama anymore due to legal risks.

[89th]

No idea how a patient could access frozen embryos. In my experience they are very well protected, both in terms of access (not just dropping, but mixing up parent affiliations) as well as redundant systems/power to make sure they don't thaw if the power goes out.

[Axtremus]

Maybe Alabamans can drop unwanted frozen embryos at fire stations without legal repercussions …

https://www.al.com/news/2023/06/new-alabama-law-authorizes-safe-haven-boxes-to-surrender-infants-at-fire-stations.html

Like many other states, Alabama has a law that allow infants to be surrendered at fire stations without being charged of abandonment. As a legal theory, maybe unwanted frozen embryos can be similarly surrendered?

[George K]

https://www.wsfa.com/2024/02/26/ag-marshall-issues-statement-after-explosive-device-detonated-outside-office/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=snd&utm_content=wsfa

Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement today regarding the detonation of an explosive device located outside the Alabama Attorney General’s Office in Montgomery.

Attorney General Marshall stated, “In the early hours of Saturday, February 24, an explosive device was detonated outside of the Alabama Attorney General’s Office building in Montgomery. Thankfully, no staff or personnel were injured by the explosion. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency will be leading the investigation, and we are urging anyone with information to contact them immediately.”

[George K]

More from National Review. Copied and pasted because of paywall.

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The Alabama IVF Decision and Dobbs

An immense amount of the coverage of the controversy suggests or explicitly says that the Supreme Court, by reversing Roe v. Wade, paved the way for the Alabama decision. The Biden campaign has said this by way of holding Donald Trump responsible for the Alabama decision: His appointees to the Supreme Court were instrumental to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe, and Dobbs created the opening for the Alabama court.

This is not true.

• The Supreme Court never read Roe to protect IVF from regulation or restriction (and never made other rulings to offer such protection). Carter Snead, a professor at Notre Dame Law School who specializes in bioethics, emails: “I am not aware of a single SCOTUS or US Court of Appeals precedent stating that states lack plenary authority to regulate IVF. That said, it is well known (and a source of widespread criticism from both conservatives and progressives) that IVF as such is lacking in robust regulation and government oversight, including in the name of consumer/patient protection.”

• State and federal laws and court decisions recognizing human embryos and human fetuses as persons for some legal purposes preceded Dobbs, and courts did not strike them down as inconsistent with Roe. So, for example, the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act has for two decades recognized that federal crimes against women in which an unborn child is injured — no matter what that child’s stage of development — have two victims. (I made this point earlier in the thread - GK)

• Louisiana, decades before Dobbs, outlawed the intentional destruction, sale, or use for research of IVF embryos and declared them to be “juridical persons.” (IVF is still practiced in Louisiana.)

• The Alabama decision itself says, and the dissent agrees, that the state’s wrongful-death law covered unborn children in the womb before Dobbs.

• The majority opinion mentions Dobbs once in its text and twice in footnotes, on no occasion suggesting that its ruling turned on its having become law. (It cites it for backup on points about the historical status accorded to unborn children in law.) The court did not need Dobbs to issue its ruling.

My point in writing this item is not to protect Trump or Dobbs from association with an unpopular decision (albeit a decision I think was legally correct and that has been widely misunderstood). It’s just to note that a lot of the journalistic treatment of this major story is inaccurate, and someone ought to put it into the public record.

P.S. After I wrote this item, I saw that Ed Whelan was on the case a little before me. Given how much mistaken coverage there is, though, I don’t think it will hurt to have two correctives.

[Jolly]

@Axtremus said in No more IVF in Alabama?:

Maybe Alabamans can drop unwanted frozen embryos at fire stations without legal repercussions …

https://www.al.com/news/2023/06/new-alabama-law-authorizes-safe-haven-boxes-to-surrender-infants-at-fire-stations.html

Like many other states, Alabama has a law that allow infants to be surrendered at fire stations without being charged of abandonment. As a legal theory, maybe unwanted frozen embryos can be similarly surrendered?

We've long had a safe haven law.

I suppose you live where they can legally throw babies in the dumpsters?

[jon-nyc]

@Axtremus said in No more IVF in Alabama?:

Maybe Alabamans can drop unwanted frozen embryos at fire stations without legal repercussions …

https://www.al.com/news/2023/06/new-alabama-law-authorizes-safe-haven-boxes-to-surrender-infants-at-fire-stations.html

Like many other states, Alabama has a law that allow infants to be surrendered at fire stations without being charged of abandonment. As a legal theory, maybe unwanted frozen embryos can be similarly surrendered?

Interesting theory.

[Jolly]

@jon-nyc said in No more IVF in Alabama?:

@Axtremus said in No more IVF in Alabama?:

Maybe Alabamans can drop unwanted frozen embryos at fire stations without legal repercussions …

https://www.al.com/news/2023/06/new-alabama-law-authorizes-safe-haven-boxes-to-surrender-infants-at-fire-stations.html

Like many other states, Alabama has a law that allow infants to be surrendered at fire stations without being charged of abandonment. As a legal theory, maybe unwanted frozen embryos can be similarly surrendered?

Interesting theory.

Bad theory.

Embryos are frozen by immersing them and storing them in liquid nitrogen. Cellular fluids are replaced a preservative solution before immersion. When thawing, you just don't lay them out on the counter, there is a specific detoxification and incubation process.

So, I guess you (average person) could walk to the fire station with a handful of dead embryos...

[Mik]

My cousin is/was a very prominent researcher on fertility, IVF, etc up in Saskatoon. He was even disliked by the Pope for determining that the rhythm method just doesn't work. I'll be seeing him pretty soon. Can't wait to hear what he says about this.

[jon-nyc]

@Jolly

You’d just have to drop them off still frozen.

[Axtremus]

@jon-nyc said in No more IVF in Alabama?:

@Axtremus said in No more IVF in Alabama?:

…
Like many other states, Alabama has a law that allow infants to be surrendered at fire stations without being charged of abandonment. As a legal theory, maybe unwanted frozen embryos can be similarly surrendered?

Interesting theory.

A theory I developed independently too. Haven’t search the web to see if there is any one else talking about a theory like this. :man-shrugging:

[Axtremus]

Alabama is rushing for a legislative fix:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/02/29/ivf-protections-alabama-legislature-bill/

The measures that passed almost unanimously in both Alabama chambers Thursday afternoon provide legal immunity “for death or damage to an embryo” related to IVF. Wording differences between the two bills must be reconciled before being sent to Gov. Kay Ivey, most likely next week.

On the national level:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/28/congress-ivf-access-abortion-alabama-bill-ruling/613b6400-d688-11ee-82ad-c2391b06a8f5_story.html

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans have blocked legislation that would protect access to in vitro fertilization, objecting to a vote on the issue Wednesday even after widespread backlash to a recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that threatens the practice.

[Axtremus]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/06/us/alabama-ivf-fertility-protection/index.html

Alabama governor signs IVF protection bill into law, but experts say it will take more work to protect fertility services
...
The wording of the legislation does not clearly define what falls under in vitro fertilization services, leaving a question around the storage and transportation of embryos, she noted.
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Experts have also expressed concern that while the legislation protects providers from liability when it comes to the destruction of embryos, it could also insulate them from standard medical malpractice claims.
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