Alabama's leading medical school said Wednesday that it has paused in vitro fertilization procedures due to fear of prosecution after the state's highest court ruled that frozen embryos are 'children.' 'We must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments,' University of Alabama at Birmingham spokesperson Hannah Echols told AL.
Some women may have blocked fallopian tubes that won't allow fertilized eggs to travel to the uterus. In other cases, families can carry genes that cause fatal diseases and may want to create embryos that can be tested. In those cases, families will transfer healthy embryos and may discard or donate those that carry genetic diseases.