Will Alabama’s embryo ruling make it’s way to Mississippi?

Some fertility clinics in Alabama have suddenly stopped IVF treatment following Alabama’s supreme court ruling that frozen embryos be considered “extrauterine children”.

Mississippi has attempted to pass a similar law in the past – leaving some to wonder what Alabama’s ruling could mean for Mississippi residents.

“In IVF, we are observing what happens naturally. Not every egg will turn into a baby. And not every embryo will turn into a baby.”

Dr. Randy Hines is an infertility specialist at Mississippi Reproductive Medicine who performs in vitro fertilization, or IVF, which is a fertility treatment that can fertilize multiple eggs outside the womb. In cases where more than one egg develops into an embryo, the extras are frozen.

“The embryos are the property of the couple that creates them. We do not own the embryos,” Hines explained. “We have to comply with what they want to do. We’re going to talk to them in hopes that they will use them, but they can stay frozen for a very long time. ”

These are the embryos at the center of Alabama’s supreme court case, which questions what happens to embryos that don’t become babies.

But some might be wondering: will Mississippi follow suit, and if they do what will happen?

“I don’t think that any of our patients need to be at home worrying about their embryos or their future right now,” Hines said. “Mississippi’s dealt with this in the past, and I think Mississippi would deal with it again.”

In 2011, Mississippi voters rejected a “personhood” amendment that defined human life as beginning at conception.

Dr. Hines says the same reasons that amendment failed still apply today.

“One of the chilling effects is… would people even be able to do IVF and create embryos? There are all kinds of complications because, just remember, most embryos in the natural world don’t result in babies,” he said. “So, there are embryos that never implant. There are embryos that implant and become miscarriages. There are embryos that result in ectopic pregnancies.”

Hines brings into question where the line would be drawn if embryos had the same rights as a breathing person.