A few days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Boston IVF, a fertility company with centers in six states, posted a statement that speaks to the havoc this decision will wreak not just for abortions, but for other forms of reproductive care.
The statement says: “Firstly and thankfully, our New England and New York IVF centers are NOT located in ‘trigger’ states.” It also recognizes that “the definition of ‘personhood’ and the rights of embryos may be affected” in states with trigger laws to outlaw abortion once Roe fell. Kindbody, another multistate fertility company, has begun moving cryopreserved in vitro embryos out of abortion-hostile states such as Missouri. Shady Grove Fertility, located in eight states and Washington, D.C., is developing “workarounds” to address legal risks that abortion bans pose, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In vitro fertilization and other fertility services seem separate from, even opposite to, abortion. People use IVF in hopes of having a child, not terminating a pregnancy. The new post-Roe laws do not explicitly mention lab-created embryos. Yet many abortion bans define “unborn child” or “person” with reference to fertilization. For example, a now-dead bill introduced in the Louisiana Legislature this year sought to “ensure the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all unborn children from the moment of fertilization by protecting them by the same laws protecting other human beings.” The bill spoke of “prenatal homicide,” assault and battery.
