By Erin Kayata
About 2% — tens of thousands — of babies born in the United States each year are conceived using in-vitro fertilization, a fertility treatment that’s been considered a “great triumph of modern medicine.”
But the legal viability of this procedure was called into question this year after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos could be considered children. The ruling only applied to negligence cases concerning embryo destruction, and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey later signed a bill to protect providers and patients.
However, concerns remain about the protection of the treatment, especially with 13 states considering legislation defining personhood, measures that could affect the legality of IVF.
The Supreme Court also overruled Roe v. Wade two years ago this month in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, saying the Constitution does not confer the right to abortion. The overruling of Roe v. Wade emboldened some politicians to go after reproductive rights, said Katherine Kraschel, an assistant professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University who is an expert on health policy and reproduction.
