Georgia Democrats are pressing their Republican colleagues to protect access to in vitro fertilization after the Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that fertilized eggs are children under that state’s law.
“Georgians need certainty to know that that level of terror will not be inflicted upon them,” said Sen. Elena Parent, an Atlanta Democrat who is the lead sponsor of the bill and the Senate minority caucus chair.
“Probably right now there are couples here in Georgia questioning whether they should spend the money to embark on that journey knowing that that ability could be ripped from them at any time,” she said.
Democrats from both chambers held a press conference Wednesday to encourage the majority party to act on just-filed bills that would protect access to IVF and contraception, including condoms, birth control pills and IUDs.
“Our reproductive rights are fragile,” said Rep. Teri Anulewicz, a Smyrna Democrat who co-sponsored a bill in the House that would protect access to contraception. “We know that IVF is on the chopping block, and we know that it is just a matter of time for contraception. It is not a question of if, but when.”
In Alabama, IVF programs have been put on hold after a Feb. 16 Alabama Supreme Court decision that declared frozen embryos children and said parents could collect damages for their destruction under an 1872 state law, according to the Alabama Reflector.
The fallout from the ruling has spurred Alabama Republicans to push forward bills designed to protect access to IVF. One bill would provide civil and criminal immunity to providers following commonly accepted practices of care, and another would provide civil and criminal immunity for the “death or damage to an embryo” related to IVF.
In Georgia, Senate Democrats have proposed spelling out in state law that any human egg or human embryo that exists outside of the uterus “shall not, under any…
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