2024-02-29 22:19:55
Demonstrators who came to express their disapproval, after the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision against in vitro fertilization treatments, in front of the Alabama State House, in Montgomery, February 28, 2024. STEW MILNE / AP
Republicans, who were already on the defensive over abortion, are struggling to contain the fallout from the February 16 decision by the Supreme Court of Alabama, one of the most conservative states in the United States. United.
Almost unanimously by the nine Republican judges (only one voted against), the high court of this southern state qualified frozen embryos as “extra-uterine children” deserving the protection of the Constitution, a first in the United States. United. The president of the court, Tom Parker, 72, argued that the state having adopted a “vision of the sanctity of life based on theology”he could not “destroy human life without incurring the wrath of God”. Even before the birth, he explained: “All human beings bear the image of God. Their lives cannot be destroyed without erasing his glory. »
Women with their babies in their arms, carrying signs “It’s thanks to IVF that I became a mother”doctors showing photos of children born thanks to in vitro fertilization (IVF), patients during the procedure and panicked by the threat weighing on artificial procreation techniques: Wednesday February 28, several hundred people demonstrated their disapproval in front of the seat of the local Assembly, in Montgomery, the state capital.
Stirs across the country
Inside, elected officials on the Health Committee were examining a bill urgently introduced by a group of Republicans to protect clinics and doctors against lawsuits that could arise from the Supreme Court’s decision. This practically put an end to the practice of in vitro fertilization in this State. The University of Alabama Hospital in Birmingham has paused its IVF program, along with three private clinics. Some medical transportation companies refuse to move frozen embryos to another state for fear of legal action if they are destroyed.
Finally, the Alabama House of Representatives and Senate approved legislation on Thursday to protect IVF. Nevertheless: the decision of the local Supreme Court caused a stir throughout the country, where in vitro fertilization is widely used.
Read also | United States: one year after Roe vs Wade, the right to abortion state by state
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This debate comes as fourteen States began, in 2023, to study the codification of the concept of “legal personality of the fetus” (adopted by Georgia and Missouri). Nearly 2% of women aged 15 to 44 have already used it, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the National Center for Health Statistics.
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