Second Alabama clinic pauses IVF treatments

A fertility clinic is the second facility in Alabama - after a hospital - to pause new IVF treatments after the state supreme court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children.

The clinic, Alabama Fertility, said it had concerns of "legal risk" if it carried on with the treatments.

It meant fewer babies would be born in Alabama, one of the clinicians said.

The court ruling was prompted by three couples who filed a case after their embryos were accidentally destroyed.

The incident occurred in 2020. A patient wandered into the part of a fertility clinic where the embryos being stored, handled them, and accidentally dropped them.

The ruling did not ban or restrict IVF and in fact, the couples who brought the case actively sought out the procedure.

But experts say the decision may cause confusion about whether some aspects of IVF are legal under Alabama law - and over how to use and store embryos.

IVF - which stands for invitro fertilisation - offers a possible solution to women who face challenges getting pregnant. Officials say around 2% of US pregnancies are the result of this method.

The process involves retrieving the woman's eggs with a needle from her ovaries and combining them with a man's sperm in a lab. The fertilised embryo is then transferred into the woman's uterus, where it may create a pregnancy.

The development has opened up a new front in the US battle over reproductive medicine.

The southern US state's largest hospital earlier stated its own decision to pause IVF services, over fears it could be exposed to criminal prosecution.

Alabama Fertility, the largest clinic in the state, announced in a Facebook post on Thursday its "impossibly difficult decision to hold new IVF treatments due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists".

It said it was contacting affected patients "to find solutions", and would alert legislators "as to the far reaching negative impact of this ruling on the women of Alabama".

It vowed to "continue to fight for our patients and the families of Alabama".

Dr Mamie McLean from the clinic told the BBC World Service Newshour programme that her patients would not be able to go through IVF in the near future.

She said the court ruling made it "impossible" for IVF treatments to happen in the state, adding that "there will be fewer babies in Alabama because of this". She pointed out that Alabama already had one of the lowest net population growths in the nation.

Dr McLean explained: "If an embryo is considered a child, the legal ramifications are too far-reaching and scary. We cannot put our practice or our embryology team at the risk of significant legal penalty or even jail time. And unfortunately, our patients are bearing the burden of this misguided ruling."