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The Alabama state supreme court’s ruling that frozen embryos are considered children under state law has sent shock waves through the world of reproductive medicine.
Infertility specialists and legal experts have said the ruling could have profound ramifications for would-be parents and physicians. Some patients have been scrambling to move their frozen embryos into storage in other states, and by Thursday, at least two of Alabama’s eight in vitro fertilization (IVF) providers, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Alabama Fertility, had decided to temporarily pause treatment.
“We’re getting all sorts of calls that are very valid from patients who are extremely stressed and concerned about what this means for them and their specific care,” says Dr. Beth Malizia, a physician at Alabama Fertility in Birmingham.
The first-of-its-kind ruling has raised a host of unprecedented legal questions about whether unused embryos can be discarded without civil or criminal exposure or if those embryos have an independent right to be implanted and gestated to birth, sparking a rush of panic from the thousands of families in Alabama whose hopes for children depend on assisted reproduction.
Families typically turn to IVF treatment due to fertility loss. About 2% of babies born in the U.S. are from IVF, an emotionally and physically exhausting process by which doctors typically extract as many eggs as possible from a woman, fertilize them to create embryos, and then either implant them to create a pregnancy or freeze them for later use.
Malizia spoke with TIME about the ramifications of last week’s decision and what her office plans to do for their patients.
The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
TIME: Alabama already had some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. How did you react when you heard the state Supreme Court went a step further and ruled that frozen embryos are people?
Malizia: Very distressed. Really…
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