Fetal personhood rulings could nullify a pregnant patients wishes for end-of-life care [Video]

The Alabama Supreme Court handed down an unprecedented decision in February 2024, holding that stored frozen embryos created for in vitro fertilization, known as IVF, were “minor children” under a state wrongful death law.

The impact on the medical community was immediate and acute. Fearing newfound civil or criminal legal liability if embryos were now considered “persons” under Alabama law, IVF clinics had to make an overnight choice between providing patient care and risking that liability. As a result, multiple IVF clinics across the state immediately suspended IVF procedures. And the most direct impact, of course, was on patients.

As reproductive rights law and policy researchers – and women of reproductive age – we fear that, as fetal or embryonic personhood debates continue, medical providers will face an increasing number of new situations in which they have to balance legal liability and patient welfare.

These conflicts are already playing out in the abortion context, but another looming example …