The state’s supreme court found that the destruction of frozen embryos violated state laws. IVF providers are now unsure of how the law might be interpreted in future cases.
An Alabama medical centre has stopped all IVF treatments after a court ruled that embryos are babies.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), an academic medical centre, suspended its IVF treatments so it could consider the legal repercussions of the decision, made by the state’s supreme court.
The ruling was made in a case where a person wandered into an unlocked storage area at a fertility clinic and dropped several frozen embryos on the floor.
The court determined that failing to secure that storage area violated the state’s Wrongful Death Act – which says an unjustified or negligent act that leads to someone’s death is a civil offence – because the frozen embryos were considered human beings.
