Current IVF patients in Alabama can no longer even transport existing embryos to other states.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Mark Joseph Stern
@mjs_DC
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Email from the National Infertility Association: "Nationwide embryo shipping services have indicated they will stop transporting embryos to and from Alabama until further notice."

So current IVF patients in Alabama can no longer even transport existing embryos to other states.
9:33 AM · Feb 23, 2024

Mark corrected that it was Infertility Association as opposed to Fertility, so I changed it in the tweet language.

[getagrip_already]

1. Are they under arrest? Being held hostage?

If they are people, don't they have the right to travel freely?

How can they be held without being convicted?

Enquiring minds.....

[Lovie777]

4. Well since they are children and minors............................

the adults in Alabama have concur for their safety, to remain in the frozen tomb forever with no choice of breathing and seeing the world.

Their parents or the surrogate will have to conceive the old fashion way.

[getagrip_already]

8. Ahh, pro life, of course

What was I thinking.

[Irish_Dem]

19. I think the embryo children need to hire an attorney.

[Buns_of_Fire]

6. They should be legal if they've been kept on ice for 18 years or more.

Otherwise, it might be embryo trafficking. I'm sure the Alabama legislature will get right on the appropriate legislation.

[lastlib]

28. And what happened to "parents' rights"??

What if I wanted to take my egg to see a baseball game??

[Gore1FL]

35. If you could find a company willing to make the move, you could.

They are not legally locked in AL. There are no companies with the ability to move embryos willing to take the legal risks in AL to do so.

[Walleye]

2. Hard to believe they didn't know what the ramifications of this ruling would be

[Nevilledog]

3. They don't care.

[Walleye]

7. I guess they think they will get their reward in heaven

[getagrip_already]

10. 29 virgin embryos in the afterlife.....

Valhalla awaits!

[Walleye]

11. Good one!

[A_Woman_from_MI]

5. What if parents want to take their zygote babies to Disney?

Seems pretty unfair.

[obamanut2012]

13. that is a pretty brilliant argumement

[Mz Pip]

9. I really don't get this

So what’s supposed to happen to all these frozen embryos? To they stay in the freezer forever with never the chance to be born? How is that a good thing?

[Walleye]

12. And do the parents have any say in what happens to these embryos?

They keep saying they’re all about parental rights

[tanyev]

51. As long as the parents are 100% on board with their Dominionist agenda,

then, yes, parental rights.

[obamanut2012]

14. They will seize them and adopt them out

In a woman's uterus.

Sounds sick as hell, doesn't it? But, they will.

[Irish_Dem]

17. The GOP will sell them for adoption.

[Attilatheblond]

40. half way expecting AL to offer shorter prison sentences to women in exchange for gestating unused IVF embryos.

Then, the state gets control of the actual children born. Big money in adoption I hear.

In the meantime, one assumes the parents will have to keep paying the companies for cold storage. Makes ya wonder just how much those companies may have paid to the AL supreme court justices to assure the steady flow of baby rental space.

[sheshe2]

43. Wouldn't that be kidnapping?

The court has said they are children.

[Irish_Dem]

15. Isn't it very expensive to keep them frozen? Who pays the bill forever?

The embryos get passed down generation to generation?

[lastlib]

29. Just think--I could've inherited my brother!

How could they be children if they don't have a birth certificate?

Will the state now have to issue "conception certificates" on every embryo?

[Irish_Dem]

39. Right, we are forced to keep our siblings frozen for as long as they live.

Yes we will all get conception certificates.

We don't need birth certificates because we are already people by then.

[Alpeduez21]

37. This is a great point

Usually the parents attempting for a pregnancy foot the freezer cost until fertilization. Then the other embryos are discarded. Now they may have to pay in perpetuity or if they go bankrupt does the state now pay. Legally these frozen embryos become wards of the state. Then there are parental abandonment issues. This is the problem of using a 2000 year old book as your science textbook. You don’t really know anything

[Irish_Dem]

53. The taxpayer will end up footing the bill.

[drmeow]

52. Not paying your frozen embryo bill

will become child abuse.

[Irish_Dem]

54. But freezing your child is felony child abuse.

[TheKentuckian]

60. Or be chalked up as not paying child support.

[Nevilledog]

16. My prediction

They'll set up a way for individuals to surrender the embryos and then let people "adopt" them for implantation.

[Mz Pip]

21. Weird

It sounds like even the biological parents can’t get access to them. Wasn’t the whole point of IVF to have a child?

I don’t even understand how this ended up in the courts.

[Nevilledog]

23. 3 couples had embryos destroyed when another clinic patient dropped them.

They sued for the loss of the embryos pursuant to wrongful death of a minor laws. The Supreme Court in Alabama is led by a religious evangelical nutjob who wrote the opinion that frozen embryos are extrauterine children. It sounds crazy because it is crazy.

[Mz Pip]

25. Thank you

for explaining it so clearly. I have a hard time keeping up with all the antics of the RWNJs.

[Arazi]

24. I think your right but if these are "children" in Alabama, parents should be able to move them

Of course, I also know that nothing about this situation will be logical.

The courts are dominated by Christo-fascists there and their decisions are gonna be terrible.

Couples in other red states who are in the middle of an IVF attempt should be freaked out. The patients/doctors/clinics in Alabama appear to have been blindsided (although in all honesty, Dems have been warning this was coming as soon as Roe fell)

[Gore1FL]

31. It's not that they are barred from being moved.

There is no one with the equipment willing to move them.

[coprolite]

46. A pound of dry ice and YETI cooler

aren't adequate?

I asked in another post about this situation, since these frozen embryos are now consider children, can a parent legally leave a canister of frozen embryos on the door of a fire station and still be covered by the Safe Baby Haven Laws?

[Gore1FL]

65. I do like that solution.

I can't answer to the biological and/or legal requirements.

[Attilatheblond]

41. I fully expect that the state will offer women in prison reduced sentences in return for use of their uterus to gestate

Some people want to adopt a ready made child, not actually carry a fetus. I have heard there's some big money in that. Let me see if I still have Betsy DeVos's phone number to get info on the going rate.

[Irish_Dem]

55. You can buy a child frozen or cooked.

The state can make a nice profit.

[Attilatheblond]

57. The way the authoritarians are going, such options might not be out of the realm of fesibility

The way Tuberville kept saying 'we need more people' coupled with the GOP/MAGA insistence of blocking brown people makes me think white babies might become commodities.

[Irish_Dem]

58. Yes a logical conclusion to the current facts.

A racist society, white supremacists seizing power, terrified of a multicultural society begins to go all Hitler.
Build an Aryan race.

[Probatim]

50. And they can't get to heaven until they've been baptized.

Sounds like an eternity in Purgatory.

[Irish_Dem]

56. Oh my yes. The frozen children must be baptized immediately.

Or they will go directly to hell if they thaw out accidentally.

[TheKentuckian]

61. That is pretty much the Catholics. Many to most other sects are less adamant about baptism.

[TheKentuckian]

59. Build up enough of them and start some bizarre forced birth pogrom?

Axlotl tanks from sea to shining sea?

Maybe starting with female prisoners or a welfare requirement or some such evil shit?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

18. Pauses on embryo transfers out of Alabama leave IVF patients with few options

HEALTH NEWS
Pauses on embryo transfers out of Alabama leave IVF patients with few options
Some fertility clinics and transport services are worried about shipping embryos following the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that embryos are children.

Feb. 23, 2024, 12:29 PM EST
By Aria Bendix

Some fertility clinics and shipping services plan to hold off on sending frozen embryos from Alabama to other states as they weigh the legal implications of an Alabama court ruling that says embryos created through in vitro fertilization are children.

Many doctors and patients are confused about which elements of fertility treatment are restricted, following the Alabama Supreme Court decision last week, and at least three Alabama providers have paused IVF services. Some IVF patients have considered moving their embryos out of the state to continue the process elsewhere, only to learn that the option isn't available to them right now.

RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association announced Friday that nationwide embryo shipping services have indicated that they will stop transporting embryos to and from Alabama. ... "This slight window of hope for Alabamans currently undergoing IVF to continue their family-building treatment in other states just slammed shut," RESOLVE CEO Barbara Collura said in a statement.

At least two IVF providers in Alabama told NBC News they have paused shipping of embryos, as well. ... The University of Alabama at Birmingham, which suspended IVF services this week, said Thursday that it is not sending embryos to new locations for now.

{snip}

[Hermit-The-Prog]

20. Isn't that kidnapping and unlawful restraint?

Christofascists shouldn't sit on courts or hold any public office.

[Gore1FL]

32. They aren't forced to keep them in AL.

There is simply no services with the ability to move them, willing to move them due to the risks involved due to the new rulings.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

36. AL is gonna get 'em either way...

Kidnapping if they refuse to move the frozen kids out of AL;
human trafficking of minors across state lines if they move the kidcicles.

[MOMFUDSKI]

22. They collectively need a class-action

lawsuit yesterday.

[Johonny]

26. Clinic should start shipping frozen embryos

To the chief justices house and say, there yours now. Deal with them, we're leaving.

[Gore1FL]

33. The problem is the lack of anyone with the ability to ship them.

No one is preventing the embryos' from crossing state lines. There is simply no one willing to move them inside of AL.

[mercuryblues]

27. Wouldn't that be considered interference

with custodial rights? Maybe kidnapping?

[Gore1FL]

34. The parents still have custodial rights.

They just don't have access to anyone with the necessary equipment willing to take the risk of moving an embryo in the state AL.

[Silent Type]

30. Does the Alabama Court decision actually end IVF, or is it just so unclear right now,

that organizations are being cautious?

Don’t blame them when white wingers get vile, but I get the feeling the decision doesn’t prohibit IVF, it just unnecessarily complicates what is legal, especially now.

[TheKentuckian]

62. I don't see it exactly as banned but you are on the hook

for implanting however many embryos so they can all be born seems to be the gist which means for all reasonable and practical reasons it cannot continue as a viable practice.

I think they want to transfer one for the procedure but now every egg that is fertilized has to be at least preserved forever or be implanted so who would even want to perform it and be at risk for murder charges or trying to get a woman to carry a likely to be non viable to term?

This is a crazy ass nonsensical and stupidly evil mess.

[Silent Type]

63. Thanks for the nuanced response. Honestly, think I'd rather be conceived somewhere besides Alabama.

[TheKentuckian]

64. You're quite welcome and just giving what I parse here.

I will say I don't at all understand how the possible potential to be something can be equated to being something.

Personhood at fertilization is complete hash, at the very best.

Somehow even more ridiculous than the fetal heartbeat nonsense when no such organ is even present.

Tight contest though!

[cannabis_flower]

38. Someone on Thom Hartmann today

Suggested that if people didn’t want to pay to continue keeping them alive, they should make them wards of the State of Alabama.

[TSExile]

42. Words from an IVF patient in Colorado...

Erica Cobb is totally on point...
https://m.

[limbicnuminousity]

44. They especially can't be transported if they've been implanted.

[coprolite]

49. Im sure it already being discussed

[flashman13]

45. It's all about FREEDUMB!

[Delmette2.0]

47. When the clinic closes for lack of patients

will Alabama pay the electric bill to keep the freezers going?

[moniss]

48. So now the way Alassippi

has interpreted the law and the embryo as being a child I have to conclude that an aggressive, grandstanding District Attorney would look at cases where a couple decides not to go through with IVF and then charge them with child abandonment.

Although this transport action is being enacted by a private company I could easily see a situation where the state may very well step in with their various Child Protective Services laws. Then also there are the implications in a divorce about custody, visitation and monetary support. What happens if embryos are in cold storage and now the family has financial hard times and must rely on AFDC? How are the costs regarding the "child" in cold storage dealt with. Medicaid does not cover IVF. So now what?

There is also the scenario where the state might use a threat of child abandonment charges to coerce a mother into continuing with IVF. In that case if she later has complications and dies perhaps the state should face charges.