Lawmakers in the southern US state of Alabama passed legislation Thursday to protect health workers from legal liability after the state’s supreme court ruled frozen embryos are children.
Bills “to provide civil and criminal immunity” to people providing such care cleared both Republican-controlled chambers, the legislature’s official webpage showed.
The deeply conservative state’s Republican governor, Kay Ivey, who has also voiced support for protecting IVF, is expected to sign the legislation into law.
It comes after a wave of Republicans including presumed presidential candidate Donald Trump distanced themselves from the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, in what threatened to become an electoral flashpoint in the 2024 presidential and congressional elections.
Democrats have made the preservation of reproductive rights a central part of their campaign, with women in conservative states that have strict abortion bans facing problems accessing emergency care for life-threatening pregnancies.
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The conservative-controlled US Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in 2022, paving the way for states to legally define when the procedure is allowed.
Earlier this month, the Alabama Supreme Court sided with plaintiffs in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by three couples against a fertility clinic after a patient entered a cryogenic nursery and dropped several frozen embryos, destroying them.
A lower court ruled the frozen embryos could not be considered a “person” or “child” and dismissed the claim, but the top court disagreed, in a 7-2 decision sprinkled with quotes from the Bible.
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Fertility clinics throughout the state quickly announced they were pausing IVF treatments in light of the new legal risks.
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