In Alabama, patients are praying for a change of heart on access to IVF
CNN
After two years of trying to have a baby, Paula Jean Hardin and her husband, Wes, were finally on their way to starting in vitro fertilization, a path to growing their family that Hardin believed was part of a plan from God.
After two years of trying to have a baby, Paula Jean Hardin and her husband, Wes, were finally on their way to starting in vitro fertilization, a path to growing their family that Hardin believed was part of a plan from God. But a new state Supreme Court decision, which rested partly on beliefs Hardin said she shares, has suddenly led some fertility clinics in Alabama to pause their services, putting her dreams – and those of many other families in Alabama – on hold. “It’s just frustrating, and it’s sad, and it’s heartbreaking,” Hardin said Thursday, the same day her clinic, Alabama Fertility Specialists, said it was temporarily stopping in vitro fertilization, or IVF, treatments because of legal risk. The court’s February 16 decision, which declared that frozen embryos are children under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, rested in part on the belief that “life begins at fertilization,” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in the majority opinion. In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God” and quoted from the Bible. Hardin, a 36-year-old pre-K teacher in Tuscaloosa, said the belief that life begins at conception is an important part of her faith as well, but she emphasized that she didn’t believe it was inconsistent with IVF. “I am a huge follower of Jesus,” said Hardin, who leads a group at her church for people who’ve had fertility issues. “I am for sure pro-life – like, I think it happens at conception – but I also don’t think that if we were to do IVF and it failed the first time – because sometimes it just doesn’t take – then that would make me a murderer or that would make the doctor part of a homicide.