Biden's top health expert travels to Alabama to hear from IVF families upset by court ruling

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama ‒ The Biden Administration dispatched its top healthcare expert here on Tuesday to meet with fertility doctors and families undergoing in vitro fertilization, days after the Alabama Supreme Court effectively halted the treatment in the state.

After meeting with affected families, federal Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra noted that the court's decision was possible only because the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe vs. Wade and permitted states to ban abortions. That ruling allowed states to pass what are known as "personhood" laws specifying that life begins at conception.

Alabama's court is the first one nationally to use a personhood law to potentially restrict IVF, under a law that overwhelmingly passed the state legislature and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey. Ivey on Tuesday said she expects state lawmakers to pass an exemption law soon protecting IVF.

“I think it’s become clear that this isn’t just about abortion," Becerra said. "I hope common sense will prevail."

Following the decision, several Alabama IVF providers announced they were halting procedures. In IVF, doctors remove eggs, fertilize them with sperm in a lab, and then implant that embryo back into the womb. It's an expensive and invasive procedure that typically requires months of medication and hormone shots.

The court's ruling repeatedly invoked Christian faith and the Alabama Constitution, which specifically protects unborn children, although that has typically referred to a developing fetus inside a womb.

The  decision has been met with alarm internationally, with IVF advocates arguing the decision has far-reaching consequences for millions of people struggling to get pregnant.

And politically, the decision has put Republicans in a tough spot: Many self-described conservatives who have historically supported personhood laws to block abortion find themselves struggling to explain to their constituents how it might also block them from using IVF to have children.

President Joe Biden has condemned the ruling, and former President Donald Trump has called on the state's Republican leadership to protect IVF.

IVF mom LaTorya Beasley, who met with Becerra on Tuesday, said she was supposed to have a new embryo transfer next month, but doctors cancelled it following the decision.

“It is literally a gut punch," she said. "You don’t think it’ll happen to you until it does."

Added Rachel Charles, who has been trying to have an IVF child: "This affects real people, this affects real families."

HHS estimated in 2020 that there were at least 600,000 frozen embryos were in storage nationwide; the National Embryo Donation Center said the number could be 1 million. Nationally, about 2% of births a year involve IVF, or about 100,000 children.