A state supreme court ruling and subsequent legislation in Alabama recently brought reproductive rights into the public eye. 

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Feb. 16 that frozen embryos had the same rights and protections as children, a decision that led fertility clinics in the state to stop their in vitro fertilization practices. 

IVF is an alternative form of conception typically used by women who have had difficulty becoming pregnant. The process involves collecting eggs from the ovaries and manually fertilizing them in a lab. The result is a number of extra-uterine embryos, which can either be frozen for storage or used to begin a pregnancy.

Alabama’s Legislature reacted to the court’s IVF ruling by passing a law giving providers and patients immunity from civil and criminal repercussions.

The law didn’t, however, change the new legal status of frozen embryos in the state; they’re still considered children under the court’s ruling. 

Following the immunity law, some of Alabama’s fertility clinics planned to reopen, but the clinic involved in the initial case made a public announcement saying they would remain closed.

“At this time, we believe the law falls short of addressing the fertilized eggs currently stored across the state and leaves challenges for physicians and fertility clinics trying to help deserving families have children of their own,” a spokesperson for the Mobile Infirmary Health and the Center for Reproductive Medicine said.

In Louisiana, reproductive rights have become an increasingly embattled issue since the state made most abortions illegal following the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Roe v. Wade reversal in 2022. 

At LSU, the student organization Feminists in Action is a major advocate for the issue on campus. 

The group’s director of political awareness, psychology junior Catherine Suthon, said she saw Alabama’s recent immunity law as a “band-aid.”

Suthon said the “quick fix” didn’t resolve the initial ruling’s problematic implications, regarding fetal personhood, and that although some fertility clinics would reopen, the damage had already been done.

“It leaves IVF providers still very vulnerable to any changes that they might have,” Suthon said.

Interpretation of the law has also become an issue in Louisiana. 

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the country’s long-held constitutional-rights stance on abortion, a spate of new laws throughout the states have criminalized or placed limits on the procedure.

Louisiana’s abortion law makes exceptions for “good faith medical judgment” to prevent the death of a pregnant woman, but the statute’s vague wording means most doctors won’t risk the potential legal repercussions of intervening in a pregnancy. 

Nancy Davis, a Baton Rouge native, knew this struggle personally. 

Davis was told in August 2022 that the fetus she was carrying had acrania, a diagnosis that meant the fetus was growing without a skull and most of the brain. Her doctor told her that even if the fetus made it through birth, he or she would die in minutes.

Louisiana reproductive laws, despite having exceptions for nonviable pregnancies, were so vague that doctors feared prosecutions and losing their licenses, Davis said. Although the fetus she was carrying was nonviable, Davis couldn’t get the healthcare she needed in Louisiana. 

She had two choices: carry to term or drive across the country to a state where abortion was legal. 

Davis reached out to local news to share her story. 

“I knew if I was going through it,” Davis said, “…other women, other families were going through it as well.”

Davis traveled 1,500 miles to get an abortion in New York. Afterward, she started the Nancy Davis Foundation which she said revolves around advocating for reproductive justice and maternal health, as well as bridging gaps in healthcare access.

“From that moment, I made a conscious decision,” Davis said, “and I always felt obligated and a sense of responsibility to help as many others as I possibly could.”

Alabama’s recent IVF case was brought to court by three couples whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic. They sought damages under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, which allows parents of a deceased child to seek punitive damages within six months of the child’s death if it was caused by “the wrongful act, omission, or negligence of any person.”

The all-Republican court ruled 8-1 that any unborn child, regardless of developmental stage or location inside or outside the womb, is considered a child under the Wrongful Death Act, opening the possibility of criminal prosecution for fertility doctors.

Within days of the ruling designed to protect “extrauterine children,” major fertility clinics in Alabama closed its IVF services, driving up the cost of IVF for families forced to go out of state. And IVF already costs, on average, around $25,000.

Shortly after, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, who had two children through IVF, proposed a bill that would protect the medical practice on a national level. The bill was swiftly shot down. 

Since Alabama’s ruling, even more states, like Iowa, Kentucky and Utah, have introduced legislation with fetal personhood language. 

Alabama’s legislature responded to its Supreme Court’s decision by drafting an immunity law for doctors and patients to pursue IVF. As a bill, it passed quickly through the state congress and was signed into law March 6. 

The legislature didn’t define if an embryo created through IVF should be considered a child in Alabama law, but instead provided civil and criminal immunity to health providers and personnel in the case of death or destruction of an embryo.

The Alabama IVF ruling also drew attention because of the court’s religious rationale. 

Chief Justice Tom Parker cited theology and scripture several times in his ruling opinion.

“(1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate;” Parker wrote, “and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”

Alena Allen, dean of the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, said she was shocked by the case. 

Religious law is the influence of theocracy on legislation and interpretation of the law, she explained, and while the founding fathers made a clear distinction between church and state, “a large segment of Americans [are now] advocating for more dominance of religion into policy and law.”

Allen said that healthcare in the U.S. is being affected by a lobby that has nothing to do with health, what she described as the “religious right, who are advocating for positions that are anti-health that have a lot of impact on health, to sort of legislate their religious beliefs.”

“I think we have minority interests which have captured state houses and even the federal house in a way that is not really reflecting what the average American believes and thinks,” Allen said. “Because right now the people who are voting are not necessarily representative of the silent majority.”

Justice Greg Cook, the one vote on the court against the ruling, referred to the separation of powers in his dissenting opinion. 

“Even when the facts of a case concern profoundly difficult moral questions, our Court must stay within the bounds of our judicial role,” Cook wrote. “I dissent because the main opinion violates this fundamental principle that is, that the legislative branch and not the judicial branch updates laws by expanding the meaning of the Wrongful Death Act beyond what it meant in 1872 without an amendment by the Legislature.”

The same day of the IVF ruling, Parker spoke about his belief in the Seven Mountains Mandate in an online broadcast. 

The Seven Mountains Mandate supports the idea that Christians are meant to take control over seven areas of society media, government, education, economy, family, religion and entertainment.

“God created government and the fact that we have let it go into the possession of others is heartbreaking for those of us who understand,” Parker said.

At LSU, some students voiced agreement with the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling. 

Savannah Harrison, an interdisciplinary studies senior said, the idea of an embryo being discarded bothered her. 

“So many people try to dehumanize embryos and growing babies,” Harrison said, “and it’s really sad to see that there isn’t any law to give them dignity and give them legal value.”

Harrison said she didn’t think the entire industry should be scrapped, but said it could be restructured so fewer embryos are discarded. 

If the residents of Alabama are happy with the new law, Harrison said, it’d show during election season, but personally she didn’t agree with the legislation.

For individuals, Allen said, voting is the best way to make a difference in how their home states decide reproductive rights.