Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and advocates at a March 3 press conference supporting federal legislation to protect access to in vitro fertilization services for couples amid a restrictive Alabama state court ruling.
Photo via Facebook/U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
The national push to protect in vitro fertilization (IVF) across America continued in Manhattan on Sunday.
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator, called for passage of the Access to Family Building Act to protect IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies in the wake of an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that further endangers access to reproductive care in America.
IVF is typically used by couples trying to conceive who may be suffering from infertility issues.
During IVF treatments, additional embryos which are not used can be kept frozen by a fertility clinic for later usage if a couple chooses to conceive once more; this would spare mothers from having to undergo additional hormonal treatments and surgeries, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The Alabama court ruling, Gillibrand and other reproductive rights advocates say, threatens to outlaw IVF and deny couples their right to raise families. The Alabama judges declared that embryos could be considered as children, and providers who destroy frozen embryos for any reason could be held liable for wrongful death. That has, in turn, forced IVF clinics in Alabama to suspend operations.
The ruling, Gillibrand argued, also “strips away some of our most fundamental reproductive freedoms.”
She considers it another “dangerous” legal decision in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs ruling that overturned the 50-year Roe v. Wade decision that preserved abortion access in America.
Even though IVF and abortion are protected in New York, the Alabama court ruling could still impact parents trying to have a family here in the Empire State, Gilibrand noted.
“It will make it harder for women to access infertility treatments,…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply