Battle Over Frozen Embryos: Impact on IVF Patients in Alabama

TFD – Delve into the controversy surrounding frozen embryos in Alabama and its repercussions on IVF patients’ reproductive options.

Kristia Rumbley, a Birmingham-area mother of four, thought of herself first when she learned about the contentious decision on frozen embryos made by the Alabama Supreme Court.

Rumbley, 44, claims that a nearby IVF clinic has frozen three of her embryos. She and her spouse used in vitro fertilization to grow their family when she experienced secondary infertility following the birth of their first child. After the surgery, they welcomed twins in 2016 and another kid in 2021.

Three frozen embryos were not used in the process. Rumbley and her spouse have decided to stop growing their family and are keeping the embryos in storage until they make a final decision.

Although the precise number of frozen embryos in Alabama is unknown, TMRW Life Sciences, a biotech company that manages frozen eggs and embryos, estimates that there are over a million frozen eggs and embryos in the United States.

However, the decision made by the California Supreme Court has completely upended the future of IVF and those embryos. Patients like Rumbley are rushing to transfer their frozen embryos to neighboring states as clinics in the state have closed and some lawmakers are fighting to protect IVF.

Here is what we now know about the potential fate of the frozen embryos that are being kept in storage in Alabama.

Why and how frozen embryos are created by IVF

IVF, which was created in the 1970s, has grown in popularity as a fertility treatment for parents who are having trouble conceiving as well as for those who use surrogacy to conceive.

“For a sizeable portion of our infertility population, IVF is a patient’s best and often only option,” Andrew Harper, medical director of Huntsville Reproductive Medicine in Madison, Alabama, told CNN. Around 2% of babies in the United States are born through IVF, CNN previously reported.

An egg is taken out of the patient’s body and mixed with sperm in a lab during the operation. In an attempt to conceive, the resultant embryos are inserted into the uterus of the recipient. Nevertheless, only a small percentage of the eggs exposed to sperm will fertilize and grow into mature embryos.

Doctors frequently attempt to fertilize more eggs than necessary as a result of this inefficiency. Eve Feinberg, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, recently told CNN that “the science behind IVF really shows that one single fertilized egg is not enough.”

If her patients say they want two or three children, Feinberg encourages them to have between two to four embryos frozen for each, she said.

Patients may decide to freeze their embryos rather than immediately implant them in certain cases. Medical personnel can conduct genetic testing thanks to the freezing of embryos. This is especially important for individuals who choose to pursue IVF since they have a family history of specific genetic problems.

Patients with cancer who run the danger of losing their fertility while receiving treatment may also choose to store eggs or embryos beforehand. Moreover, Feinberg previously told CNN that parents may decide to freeze embryos following IVF in order to postpone childbearing for a variety of reasons.

In 2015, Rumbley only had one IVF cycle. Three children were born from a total of six healthy embryos that were created.

However, maintaining embryos indefinitely can get costly very quickly. According to Connecticut-based Illume Fertility, patients are required to pay an annual storage fee, which can vary from $500 to $1,000. According to Harvard Medical School, the embryos can be given to other families who are unable to conceive naturally or donated for scientific study. It is also possible to destroy them.

Frozen embryos are left in “cryogenic limbo” by the ruling.

Families’ options were made more difficult when Alabama’s highest court decided that frozen embryos are legally considered children and that individuals may be held accountable for their destruction.

Legal concerns have caused at least three Alabama facilities to temporarily halt some IVF procedures. Meanwhile, a bill that would say that “any fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists outside of a human uterus is not considered an unborn child or human being for any purposes under state law” was submitted by Democrats in the Alabama state House on Thursday.

According to Rumbley, the decision is very personal, and she and her spouse aren’t quite ready to make it yet. “If they were taken from me and given to another family, I would be devastated,” the woman uttered. “I think I should wait to make a decision until I am fully prepared, even though I know I won’t have them.”

She said, “If they are entitled to the same rights as a born child, then the government is also entitled to take a child away from me if they believe that I am mistreating or neglecting them.” “And I’m not sure what they would consider to be abuse or neglect when it comes to an embryo; perhaps they would consider it neglect if it were kept frozen for seven years.”

Reproductive rights and health law expert Seema Mohapatra, a law professor at SMU Dedman School of Law, told CNN “Embryos are usually considered property,” the speaker stated. “That personal property’s owner is free to use it however they please.” However, those embryos are now “akin to children” in Alabama.

The unprecedented ruling also leaves open the question of who will pay for the long-term storage of frozen embryos, Mohapatra said.

Rumbley is hoping to move her embryos to Massachusetts, but says she hasn’t been able to contact the hospital where her embryos are currently stored to find out if she can ship them using a third-party company or transport them herself.

“We’re not sure if moving them would constitute criminal negligence if something were to happen,” she remarked. “However, I am aware that I don’t want them to be in a situation where they might not be under my control.”

IVF is still possible in the state, but Lauren Bowerman, a writer and editor from Birmingham who has one daughter born via IVF and five frozen embryos at the University of Alabama at Birmingham clinic, told CNN that “if it comes down to it, we would move our embryos out of state in order to move forward.”

“We fully intend to use every one of our frozen embryos, so we will do whatever it takes so that we can have them,” she said. “For us (and I know for many IVF couples) it is not just the emotional impact of a delay like this; there are also many timeline considerations to growing our family, so a delay and legal battle like this can feel particularly scary and frustrating.”

At least two cryostorage companies – Seattle Sperm Bank and CryoFuture – told CNN via email they have offered to transfer frozen embryos from Alabama at a reduced cost in the wake of the ruling.

Because embryos can be damaged or become unsuitable for pregnancy at any point during IVF, the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, which provided input prior to the court’s decision, has cautioned that the ruling will create a “enormous potential for civil liability” for fertility specialists. The group added that it might imply that embryos cannot be thrown away, even in cases where one or both parents pass away.

The office of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has declared that it will not use the decision to bring charges against IVF providers or patients.

Nevertheless, Harper, the Madison center’s medical director, told CNN that while IVF treatments are still being conducted there, the hospital has stopped destroying embryos.

Additionally, his institution will stop storing embryos on-site and instead store them with a Minnesota cryostorage company. He said that there are still “50 to 70 cohorts of embryos” at the facility that had been “abandoned” for up to 15 years.

He clarified, “The consent states unequivocally that the practice reserves the right to discard the embryos if they have been abandoned for five years.” But those stored embryos are now in “cryogenic limbo” as a result of the court decision.

He remarked, “It will be someone’s problem long after I’m gone.”

According to Bowerman, she is “deeply frustrated and grieved” by the decision and the subsequent delay in her own embryo transfer.

“It’s unsettling to consider that if legislation similar to this had been passed at the time, we might not have been able to go through this process and our daughter would probably not be alive today,” she continued.