Alabama’s Republican Governor Signs Law Protecting IVF

Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill Wednesday evening that gives medical professionals who freeze embryos for fertility treatments immunity from criminal prosecution. The legislation comes after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that human embryos are unborn children and entitled to wrongful death legal protection when their lives are wrongly terminated. The bill was […]

The post Alabama’s Republican Governor Signs Law Protecting IVF appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill Wednesday evening that gives medical professionals who freeze embryos for fertility treatments immunity from criminal prosecution.

The legislation comes after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that human embryos are unborn children and entitled to wrongful death legal protection when their lives are wrongly terminated.

The bill was proposed by lawmakers in February after the state court’s ruling. Ivey announced that she had signed the bill in a statement released on X.

“I have signed SB159, the IVF protections legislation, after it received overwhelming support from the Alabama Legislature. IVF is a complex issue, no doubt, and I anticipate there will be more work to come, but right now, I am confident that this legislation will provide the assurances our IVF clinics need and will lead them to resume services immediately,” Ivey said.

The law prohibits any “action, suit, or criminal prosecution for the damage to or death of an embryo,” but does not address the state Supreme Court’s assertion that human ebryos are human beings with legal protection. The law will also apply retroactively, protecting providers who performed or participated in IVF services prior to the bill’s adoption.

The Alabama Fertility Clinic and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) clinic both announced Wednesday that, in light of the new law, they planned to restart their IVF services after shutting down for several weeks, according to NBC News.

Please follow LifeNews on Rumble for the latest pro-life videos.

“While UAB is moving to promptly resume IVF treatments, we will continue to assess developments and advocate for protections for IVF patients and our providers,” Dr. Warner Huh, the chair of the UAB Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said in a video statement.

Leading pro-life groups had concerns with the legislation.

CatholicVote President Brian Burch and other pro-life leaders penned a letter to Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday urging her to veto two bills aimed at giving the state’s in-vitro fertilization (IVF) industry legal immunity.

In the letter, the coalition of over a dozen pro-life advocates indicated that it opposes the passage of HB 237 and SB 159, which are both currently headed to Ivey’s desk.

The leaders stated that the legislation “would grant civil and criminal immunity to ‘any individual or entity providing goods or services related to in vitro fertilization’ even if their actions cause death or damage to embryos created through IVF.”

“If enacted,” the letter explained,

this sweeping legislation would slam the door on any protections for the most vulnerable Alabamians, prevent families from seeking justice for the death or harm caused to their children, and leave a trail of destructive, immoral implications in its wake.

“We urge you to veto this legislation,” the letter emphasized.

“It is an indisputable scientific fact that human life begins at the moment of fertilization,” the leaders pointed out.

They went on to outline how supporting the rights of human embryos is integral to the aims of the pro-life movement.

“A child in the embryonic stage of development is of incalculable value to his or her family, and though young, is not of any less worth to their parents than a child at three months in the womb, nine months in the womb, or after the very moment of birth,” the pro-life coalition wrote:

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

Both science and logic have made it clear that embryos must be accorded the same human rights and level of dignity that all other human beings — at every developmental stage of life — are granted.

By extension, the leaders cautioned that HB 237 and SB 159 would “withdraw existing legal protections for Alabama’s most vulnerable persons, simply because those persons were created through IVF.”

“[The legislation] would provide blanket civil and criminal immunity even for criminal and intentionally tortious acts committed in connection with IVF,” they noted. They stated that the bills could theoretically provide immunity to:

a doctor who secretly uses his own sperm to create embryos, deliberately implants someone else’s child into a different IVF mother’s womb, or intentionally destroys the embryos he creates against the wishes of the parents.

Live Action Foundress and President Lila Rose was the letter’s lead signatory.

Per Live Action, other signatories included “Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life; … Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America; and Jeanne F. Mancini, president of March for Life Action, among others.”

The post Alabama’s Republican Governor Signs Law Protecting IVF appeared first on LifeNews.com.