When Heather Maurer first saw on the news that the Alabama Supreme Court had ruled that frozen embryos could be considered “ectopic babies” under state law, she didn't think much of it.
She and her husband, Chris Maurer, had already made an appointment in March for the last embryo to be transferred – and implanted in the uterus to start the pregnancy – at a fertility center in Birmingham. The couple, who began fertility treatments more than four years ago in Alabama before moving to Sacramento, had already purchased their plane ticket.
But hours later, Maurer received a phone call from her doctor.
The doctor told her that the clinic had stopped all in vitro fertilization procedures until further notice. It will also not be possible to transfer the embryos to a different clinic. Maurer's plans to have a second child are now in limbo.
“Honestly, I cried for a few hours after that, and I didn’t know what to do,” Maurer, 38, said. She gave birth to her 19-month-old son Maximus, thanks to IVF treatment in Birmingham.
The Maurer family is one of many families that will now see reproductive care disrupted as a result of a court ruling that frozen embryos created during fertility treatments can be considered children under state law.
In addition to disappointment and confusion regarding the future of their care, some of these families also face enormous unexpected expenses as they scramble to find a way to continue treatment. Embryo transfer alone can cost thousands of dollars.
For Maurer, who works as an intensive care nurse, it would cost about $4,000 to transfer her embryos out of state — if it was ultimately possible — plus nearly $10,000 to resume treatment in California. This estimate does not include the family law attorney the couple is considering hiring to help them deal with the new state ruling; The lawyer charges $350 an hour plus a $5,000 copay, Maurer told MarketWatch.
Maurer's family has turned to GoFundMe for support, hoping to raise $2,000 to help defray those unexpected costs. As of Tuesday, they had received $550 in donations.
“We have already waited years, and now we have to pay these legal fees and unnecessary costs to get our embryo [that belongs to me] “He was transferred to us,” Maurer said.
“We have already used all our savings for IVF. We don’t know what to do,” she added. “I feel very disappointed.”
Why are Alabama families rushing to transfer embryos?
Dr. Kara Goldman, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said the Alabama Supreme Court ruling complicates treatment that in most cases requires multiple embryos grown in a lab for a single viable pregnancy.
During a typical IVF process, doctors collect eggs from the patient. Then, in the laboratory, those eggs are fertilized and the embryo grows.
But “reproduction is ineffective,” Goldman said, and there are many things that can go wrong at every step of the IVF process.
When doctors retrieve eggs, only a portion of them are viable and can produce an embryo. She said that even for a patient at peak fertility, only about 60% of fetuses do not suffer from any chromosomal abnormalities.
“It's really important to start IVF with a reasonable number of embryos, because we expect attrition,” she said.
The Wall Street Journal reported that there are more than 1 million embryos stored across the United States.
But according to a recent Alabama ruling, those fetuses are now considered children under state law. The justices ruled that an 1872 state law allowing parents to sue for the wrongful death of a minor child “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”
Multiple clinics in Alabama have suspended IVF services as they determine the legal ramifications of the decision. This has prompted some families to scramble to transfer their embryos outside of Alabama.
CryoFuture, a California-based company that specializes in embryo shipping and storage technology, received “a lot of requests” from Alabama patients after the ruling, said Devin Monahan, senior vice president of business development at CryoFuture.
The company is offering discounted rates to those affected by the ruling — about $500 for shipping, instead of the usual $800 to $1,200 — and has begun scheduling pickups for the orders it has received, Monahan told MarketWatch.
In a state where residents already have relatively limited access to fertility care — clinics are sparse in Alabama, and the state does not require private insurance companies to cover fertility treatments — the ruling complicates a very personal medical process for many families, Goldman said.
“The fact that this has been legislated is fundamentally disturbing. “Actually, that's an understatement,” she said. “Patients are really being held hostage by this.”
“I wasn't very disappointed”
When Caroline Veazey, 30, heard the news of the court ruling, she was stunned, but not afraid, she told MarketWatch.
But once clinics started halting treatment, she panicked and quickly began to collect what it would cost to transfer her six healthy embryos out of her Birmingham clinic.
And since it cost her about $2,000 to obtain a single vial of sperm to begin her treatment — Fizzy and her partner are one of many same-sex couples pursuing IVF — she knew the costs would be significant. That's when she decided to launch her GoFundMe page, which had raised about $6,100 as of Tuesday morning.
“In my mind, I was thinking, ‘I don’t even have a circle this big; I’ll probably get like $100,’” Veazey said. “But I thought I really needed to try.”
Even if Vizi, a licensed professional counselor, can raise enough money to help defray the costs, there may be other obstacles. Her clinic informed her that she had to change the required paperwork to allow the embryos to be released before Veazey could transfer them elsewhere.
“I know my clinic has to be careful,” Veazey said. “But I want to get my embryos out of Alabama as soon as possible.”
“I don't have access to what my body has gone through, and what amazingly it has created,” she continued. “In my wildest dreams, I never imagined something like this would happen.”
Alabama lawmakers rushed to pass legislation that would protect IVF services in the state, and have drafted separate proposals in the state House and Senate that seek to prevent a fertilized egg from being recognized as human life, CBS reported.
Meanwhile, women like Fizi remain in emotional and financial limbo.
“One minute I'm angry; the next, I'm in tears,” she said. “I've never been so disappointed in Alabama before.”
Zoe Hahn contributed.
