Thread by @KatieKraschel

Roe has long protected the fertility industry from regulation of IVF & fertility care decision making. My take on WHAT COULD HAPPEN TO Embryos, IVF, and ART IF THE LEAKED DOBBS DECISION STANDS.
Note: most IVF cycles involve “extra” embryos

(1) READ PERSONHOOD BILLS CAREFULLY some will apply abortion criminalization laws to all embryos, but some legislatures have been clever in defining what actions are illegal in ways that won’t interfere with embryos in a petri dish/cryovial

Missouri’s trigger law is a good example of this, it defines abortion as “destroy the life of an embryo or fetus in HIS OR HER MOTHER’S WOMB." So under the Missouri law when Roe is overturned, discarding embryos – no problem.

Conversely, the Louisiana bill introduced this week specifically revises their existing law to REMOVE “and implantation” from their previous person definition “from the moment of fertilization AND IMPLANTATION."

So -what will they do with embryos frozen in Louisiana? Who the h*ll knows, but IF MY EMBRYOS WERE STORED IN A PERSONHOOD STATE, I WOULD BE LOOKING INTO MOVING THEM TO A STORAGE FACILITY/CLINIC IN A PRO-CHOICE STATE RIGHT NOW!

(2) So if destroying embryos is “murder” what do we do about frozen embryos? States may consider compulsory “adoption” - giving to someone else for them to try to get pregnant or...

“compassionate transfer” – when embryos are transferred to a uterus INTENTIONALLY WHEN THERE IS NO CHANCE A PREGNANCY WILL RESULT BASED UPON THE TIME OF THE PERSON’S CYCLE! asrm.org/globalassets/a…

States were happy to require compulsory vaginal ultrasounds prior to an abortion, why would they shy away from another fairly simple vaginal procedure? (Note – not suggesting all of IVF is “simple” just the transfer of an embryo into the uterus, which is pretty straightforward)

States could also start to regulate embryo selection and disposition. For example, the abortion “reason bans” championed by anti-choice groups now become embryo selection “reason bans”

To the extent a personhood state’s law isn’t clear about how embryos should be handled in the event of divorce, it seems it would follow that in these states, clearly embryos would go to the person who wants to use them to get someone pregnant.

(3) LAWS WILL INFORM CLINICAL PRACTICE Clinics will want to have as little to do with the liability of freezing or destroying embryos and so are likely to encourage patients to freeze eggs and sperm separately and or not to fertilize all eggs harvested in a given IVF cycle.

Good news is success rates w/ frozen, unfertilized eggs is better than ever, so people should still be able to get pregnant, but there's a whole other can of worms (for another time) that this could increase cost or time from beginning of treatment to live birth.

Clinics could transfer multiple embryos - transferring the grade-A embryo with an embryo unlikely to create a pregnancy in order to use up the supply & avoid the extra embryo debacle (fun fact they actually GRADE embryo quality. My 14 month old is a straight-A student already)

(4) Also… SURROGACY. I focus here on fertility clinics and embryos, but without the floor of Roe there is a whole other litany of complicated questions about forum shopping, the availability of selective termination, "specific performance" etc. etc. etc….

would love to hear others' thoughts... @ProfessorMutch @michelebgoodwin @RRebouche @CohenProf @eadashi @profmohapatra