There are conversations about the moment

Alabama Legislature vetoes an Alabama anti-abortion law, prompting IVF clinics to halt IVF operations if the procedure is “children’s right to life”

A major question before November’s elections will be how the anti-abortion movement reacts to Republican efforts to sideline it. Already, Kari Lake, a candidate for Senate in Arizona, who once called abortion “the ultimate sin,” has come out against both a federal abortion ban and a near-total Arizona abortion ban that’s tied up in court.

Some of the movement’s top figures wrote a letter to the Governor of Alabama urging her to veto the bill. Both logic and science agree that embryos should be accorded the same human rights and level of dignity that other human beings are given.

Under the new legal precedent, an IVF clinic could face charges of manslaughter or homicide if they throw away unviable and leftover embryos.

The Alabama State Legislature passed a bill on Wednesday night granting civil and criminal immunity to fertilization service providers.

Many clinics paused IVF services last month after the procedure was thrown into uncertain legal territory by the state Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos are “children” with a constitutional right to life.

One of the biggest IVF providers in the state will be able to start procedures again thanks to the new law, according to a statement from the university.

Another IVF provider told NPR earlier in the day they planned to perform embryo transfers on Thursday in anticipation of the immunity law’s enactment.

Corinn O’Brien, an advocate for embryonic life, says the Alabama Immunity Bill is a necessary legislative Band-Aid

Corinn O’Brien of Fight for Alabama Families Coalition says that they are hearing loud and clear that this affects Alabama families. She’s one of hundreds of advocates who have been lobbying at the statehouse, and says that effort- plus over 20 thousand emails- ramped up pressure on Alabama lawmakers to take action.

“The last couple of weeks have been devastating for people and they’ve been left in the lurch of what’s going to happen,” says O’Brien, who is herself pregnant through IVF and sympathizes with those who were in the middle of their treatment when the court ruling forced a pause.

“I think there’s just too much difference of opinion on when actual life begins,” said Republican Senator and medical doctor Tim Melson, who sponsored the immunity legislation.

During the floor debate, Melson admitted the legislation leaves many unanswered questions, like whether an embryo frozen for three decades before implantation would be considered 30 years old at birth.

Melson told NPR that he removed the personhood language in order to smooth the bill’s passage. The aim of his bill is to allow people to resume treatment without fear that another change to state law may lead to future prosecution.

Rep. Terri Collins, whose identical House immunity bill made it through a vote just three days after being introduced, stressed to her colleagues that the bill is a necessary legislative Band-Aid.

“We are providing with this legislation a pretty broad immunity at this moment in time which to me gives us the impetus to continue to work on this issue for a long term fix,” she said.

Democratic state Rep. Chris England worried that once an immunity bill is signed, lawmakers will lose their sense of urgency and fail to revisit the question of embryonic personhood.

The immunity will shield clinics from being sued, England said during the debate. He told his colleagues to include personhood language in the existing bill.

England likened the bill to turning a water hose on a tree in a forest that’s on fire, saying that the immunity bill did nothing to address remaining legal questions.

The Republican State Rep. called the destruction of embryos a “holocaust”, and advocated for the pause on IVF to make sure they didn’t endorse the destruction of lives of children.

In a speech that included quotes from the Bible, the TV show Reacher, and the lyrics of 90’s rapper Vanilla Ice, Yarbrough introduced an amendment to the bill to add that “immunity will not be provided to a person who intentionally causes the death of an unborn child.”

The bill made its way through, despite the fact that the amendment that would have eliminated the whole intent of the immunity bill was voted down.