Two things can be true at once regarding the recent inauspicious news that the University of Alabama at Birmingham has paused its in vitro fertilization services. The court case that spurred the decision was correctly decided for the wrong reasons, and Alabama lawmakers deserve the negative press they are getting for it.

The case at the center of the story was brought to the court by three couples looking to sue the Center for Reproductive Medicine, where they underwent IVF treatment, and the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, the hospital where their embryos were stored in cryostasis. 

The plaintiffs sought compensation for financial and emotional damages after the defendants failed to prevent a hospital patient from wandering into an unlocked door, where they gained access to the cryogenic nursery. Once there, they subsequently dropped “several” embryos, “killing” them. 

A lower court rejected the plaintiffs’ claims saying, “the cryopreserved, in vitro embryos involved in this case do not fit within the definition of a ‘person,’” sic denying the parents’ recompense for a wrongful-death claim. 

The case may have stopped there if the lower court had not been so forceful in its denial of the plaintiffs’ claims, though. The parents filed two claims against the defendants — wrongful death and negligence. However, despite being obviously negligent in protecting a patient’s reproductive future, the lower court rejected the negligence claim against the two health care providers on the grounds that damages can only be recovered in the case if the plaintiff sustains emotional harm from a physical injury they received. This caused them to seek justice through appeal, which the state Supreme Court granted.

Since the decision, the court and the plaintiffs are being accused of starting a coup d’état against reproductive rights. This is a partial misread of the situation. The plaintiffs are not religious zealots or activists. They are patients of a system that has a duty to “do no harm.” 

By agreeing to provide IVF treatment, these hospitals must accept the ethical obligation of treating both donor and embryo as patients while that relationship stands. This is particularly true considering that, according to a Forbes estimate, the cost of a single IVF “cycle” can range anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000. 

Alabama state lawmakers are to blame for the negative press they are getting, however. In the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, Alabama acted with alacrity in being one of the first to hand down a theocratically influenced abortion ban that does not align with mainstream American views. 

Recent polling suggests that a majority of Americans, including a majority of women, think that abortion should be “generally illegal” from the second trimester onward. Alabama’s law bans abortion at any stage of pregnancy with exceptions for physical and mental health, but no exception for rape or incest.

The comparatively draconian views put forth by Republicans in Alabama have cost the party in other parts of the country. Republicans have lost control over state courts in both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania since Roe was overturned, with abortion being credited for the losses. This is democracy in action and some Republicans are starting to take notice, with both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump rebuking Alabama for its recent fiasco.

To their credit, Alabama Republicans say they are working on the situation so that IVF services can continue in their state. Glad to hear it, but it should not have become an issue in the first place. Whatever the solution is, though, it should not let hospitals off the hook for gross negligence. 

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