Going through in vitro fertilization, or IVF, to have a baby already means a lot of stress.
When 38-year-old Christie Nicas heard about an Alabama Supreme Court ruling a month ago, she worried. Two of her three children were born through IVF. Nicas and her husband still have four frozen embryos stored in a New Jersey laboratory.
“It was really troubling to me, to say the least, to hear about what was happening in Alabama,” Nicas said.
Last month, three IVF providers in Alabama immediately paused performing the procedure because the court ruling defined an embryo as a person. In the providers’ eyes, that meant damaging an embryo exposed them to potential criminal charges or lawsuits.
Nicas thinks the court meddled where it shouldn’t have.
“I definitely believe … that access to IVF and other reproductive assistance methods should be considered a fundamental right, free from government interference,” she said.
The Alabama ruling doesn’t apply in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. Nicas and her family live in Lehigh County. If she and her husband go through IVF again, it shouldn’t be a problem. Nonetheless, Nicas worries about prospective parents going through IVF in other states.
“I mean, I think everybody deserves an opportunity to, to pursue their, their family building path without barriers or judgment.”
She feels so strongly about it, she accepted congresswoman Susan Wild’s invitation to attend President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address earlier this month. Biden brought up protecting IVF during the speech.
Wild is sponsoring a bill to protect IVF nationwide. She introduced it a month before the Alabama ruling. The bill would guarantee couples could pursue IVF and control what happens to their embryos. Wild spoke about the bill at a recent news conference.
“This ruling and any barriers to assisted reproductive technology are unacceptable, and cruel and anathema to the concept of building families, which is something that we revere in this country that we talked about so much on both sides of the aisle,” Wild said.
So far, her bill is stalled. In a House narrowly controlled by Republicans, Wild is a Democrat. She has 144 co-sponsors, including Congressman Matt Cartwright.
Only one co-sponsor is a Republican.
