Unintended Consequences

Before I get started with today’s blog, a few disclaimers: 

1. Everything is fine with my pregnancy.
2. Last blog, I said this one would be about Rowan’s EKG, but some big news happened in the past week, and I believe it’s worth talking about. 
3. I’m sorry for the week delay. When this news came out, I knew I had to talk about it, and more and more stories have come up this week. I wanted to make sure I was informed on the specifics and took my time crafting my thoughts for this blog.
4. I’m all for discussion on this topic; I only ask anyone who does participate/comment remains respectful. 

If you follow the news regularly, you’ve likely heard about a recent state supreme court ruling in Alabama that has had major consequences in the world of IVF. For now, it’s limited to one state, but the precedent it sets could have implications nationwide. 

The gist of this case was that, somehow, a patient gained access to the cryopreservation tanks where an IVF clinic stored frozen embryos. That person opened one of the tanks, handled straws with embryos in them, and dropped those embryos. This rendered those embryos useless for a future transfer. (Here’s a BBC article with more info on the case.)

The families of the embryos sued for wrongful death and the case ended up in the Alabama supreme court. (I agree they should have sued, but I don’t think they went about it the right way. More on that in a minute.)

The supreme court overturned the lower courts’ rulings and ruled the wrongful death suit against the patient who accidentally destroyed the embryos could move forward. This ruling essentially gave personhood to embryos, and, specifically, called them “extrauterine children.”

While some people believe life begins at fertilization (when sperm meets egg), many people do not. Declaring life begins that early in a lawsuit is an incredibly dangerous and unsettling precedent to set. And I believe that’s true no matter where you fall in the pro-life/pro-choice debate. 

First, it’s not clear whether the destroyed embryos were genetically tested or not. Not every couple who does IVF chooses to test their embryos before transferring them. So, from the start, it’s possible not all of those embryos were viable, and many nonviable embryos result in a miscarriage. 

Second, none of these embryos could survive outside of a cryopreservation tank or outside of the mother’s uterus. And had some of them made it to the final step to be transferred to a uterus, there’s about a 30% chance (depending on the specific clinic’s success rates) that transfer wouldn’t result in a pregnancy. 

Everything can look great on transfer day, and, for reasons unknown, it just doesn’t stick. 

Finally, I have my own experience to lean on. I’ve mentioned this a few times already in this blog, but Nick and I have had sperm meet egg many times–46 to be exact. Once naturally and the rest through the IVF process. 

Of those 46 fertilized eggs, only two were genetically viable embryos. That’s a 4% viability rate for us. And it’s why I firmly believe sperm meeting egg is, at best, potential life. 

As I mentioned earlier, I do believe those families should’ve sued, and had that happened to Nick and me, we would have too. Going through the whole process to even get embryos is incredibly taxing and, sometimes, dangerous for the woman. 

If we’d gone through all three of our retrievals and cryopreserved our two embryos only to have them accidentally destroyed, we would’ve been devastated and heartbroken. 

But we wouldn’t have sued for wrongful death. Neither of us are lawyers, but it seems like the best course of action would be to sue the clinic for negligence in allowing the cryopreservation tanks to be accessible in the first place. Or, potentially, sue for emotional and financial damages. 

And this brings me to the blog’s title – unintended consequences. Many IVF clinics in Alabama have stopped performing embryo transfers. The clinics can’t guarantee the transfer will work and are unwilling to take the risk of being sued for wrongful death. 

This case and ensuing news was the topic of Monday’s “The Daily” podcast from The New York Times. Listen to the episode here. The host spoke with an Alabama woman who had been preparing for an embryo transfer, with the help of a surrogate. Because of this ruling, her transfer had been canceled. 

Gearing up for a transfer is no joke. It involves timing everything with a woman’s cycle, multiple expensive medications, and following a rigorous medical protocol. Here’s a look back to what our transfer protocol entailed. 

This woman was only a week away from potentially starting her family, and then her dream was dashed. She’s not even able to have the embryos transferred to a clinic in a different state to keep the process moving. The clinic won’t risk something happening to the embryos in transit. 

Her doctor told her to move forward, she’d have to complete another IVF cycle in another state. She and her husband had spent about $30,000 for the IVF process and, with the cost of the surrogate, were out $250,000. They would have to spend the next year building up the funds to try again in another state. 

I cringed when I heard her story. I can only be soooo incredibly grateful I live in a state where a woman’s reproductive rights are protected. But that’s also where this gets scary. 

Say the Alabama ruling is taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, and they decide on a similar ruling. That could halt IVF for countless families across the U.S. Or, the Supreme Court might not take up the case, and Alabama’s ruling stands. Other conservative states could enact similar laws/rulings. 

Full disclosure, there are Alabama lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are trying to enact laws that will allow IVF procedures to continue, and I think it’s great they’re trying. But it isn’t clear they have enough votes to be successful, and it does nothing for the families who are currently affected.

Nick and I are hoping to try for our little girl in a few years, and depending on how things go during that time, that could be in jeopardy. It’s a scary and upsetting thought. 

One of the ironies here is that the pro-life movement is often painted as being pro-family, but being against IVF is anti-family. 

Fertility problems are on the rise. According to the Pew Research Center, five years ago, 33% of U.S. adults said they or someone they knew had used fertility treatments. In 2023, that number was 42%. 

About 5% of couples couldn’t have a family without IVF. Just ask my parents–without IVF, they wouldn’t have any grandchildren. 

I know this is a controversial topic, but it really needs to be talked about. Without IVF, Nick and I wouldn’t be starting our family in just a couple of months. And, honestly, our future family could still be impacted by this ruling.

If you wholeheartedly disagree with me, that’s fine, but I sincerely hope you take some time to at least consider my perspective before you make up your mind.