IVF Is Still Under Threat From a Slew of Proposed US State Laws

Alabama ruling that caused national furor is part of a growing “personhood” movement. 

A senior embryologist adds media to petri dishes containing embryos, before freezing at West Coast Fertility Centers in Fountain Valley, California, in February.

Photographer: Jay L. Clendenin/The Washington Post/Getty Images
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At a Republican retreat in West Virginia last week, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said his party would “protect and preserve” access to IVF. Yet three months prior, he championed a federal law that would’ve deemed a fertilized egg a person, effectively banning the practice.

The backpedaling came in response to national furor over an Alabama case that prompted fertility clinics in the state to halt IVF procedures.