Alabama Fertility halts new procedures ‘due to the legal risk’ after state supreme court says embryos are ‘extrauterine children’

A second Alabama provider announced that it will pause its in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments on Thursday, just days after the state supreme court ruled in a first-of-its-kind decision that embryos are “extrauterine children”.

“We have made the impossibly difficult decision to hold new IVF treatments due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists,” Alabama Fertility said in a post to its Instagram account. “We are contacting patients that will be affected today to find solutions for them and we are working as hard as we can to alert our legislators as to the far-reaching negative impact of this ruling on the women of Alabama.”

Dr Michael C Allemand, a doctor at Alabama Fertility, said he and his partners were continuing to see patients. However, he said: “We’re going to be holding on anything that would be involving embryo management.”