Tonight, fertility patients and doctors in Alabama,
anxious to see a new bill signed into law that's
meant to shield clinics from costly lawsuits.
Under the new law of fertility clinics and companies would
not be criminally responsible if an embryo is destroyed and
civil damages are now limited to the cost of one
IVF cycle. We have women who have been waiting for
this bill to pass and in fact anticipating embryo transfers
as soon as tomorrow or Friday.
The bills were fast tracked by state lawmakers under mounting
pressure to course correct after that Alabama Supreme Court decision
allowing 3 couples to sue for wrongful death when their
frozen embryos were dropped and destroyed at a fertility clinic.
Multiple clinics, fearing the court ruling would open the door
to civil lawsuits,
abruptly halted all IVF procedures.
Some embryo shipping companies also pausing all business in and
out of Alabama,
sending many patients in the middle of fertility treatments to
call on lawmakers to do something.
But the new bill does nothing to address the underlying
reasoning of the court decision.
Equating frozen embryos to children.
We're not addressing this. The course intelligence is like putting
a Band-Aid on a hemorrhaging wound when we're talking about
refusing to address the actual constitutional crisis that we have
created. Megan Coles, whose surrogate had an embryo transfer cancelled
last month,
cautiously optimistic about this new law,
even if only a temporary fix.
This has been probably the worst two weeks of our
lives.
We were devastated. And then we've heard about this legislation
and so.
Then we became hopeful again.
It's been an up and down roller coaster.
And Laura, it sounds like these treatments could resume pretty
quickly.
That's right, Lester. It all depends,
though, on how fast the governor signs this into law.
The clinics have told us they are prepared to restart
treatments very quickly,
even with all of these outstanding legal questions.
Lester. All right.