‘Another hot potato’: Alabama’s IVF ruling risks political, legal backlash

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“When a state, any state, takes an aggressive action on this particular topic, people are once again made aware of it and many think: ‘Maybe I can’t support a Republican in the general election.’” He added that even if other states don’t follow Alabama’s lead, the court ruling gives GOP candidates running this year “another hot potato” to deal with — forcing them to answer questions on abortion they would rather avoid heading into the fall election.
Legal experts also say the Alabama ruling, which criminalizes the destruction of embryos under the state’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor” law and has already led to one major hospital system ending all IVF services, may violate both state and federal religious freedom laws and could be vulnerable to lawsuits.
Aaron Kemper, one of the lead lawyers in that case, pending before a Kentucky state court, said the Alabama ruling demonstrates why his clients are credibly afraid and have standing to sue.
Kemper acknowledged that the Alabama Supreme Court decision does not directly outlaw the discarding of nonviable or excess embryos that is a routine practice in IVF, but he and others said it opens the door to such a ban by defining the stored embryos as “extrauterine children.”