In a post-Roe America, frozen embryos have become an even bigger issue—not only for the mental health of those storing them, but to the clinics who have to maintain the safety and security of our most precious genetic material. At least 11 states, including Pennsylvania, have broad “personhood” laws that could grant frozen embryos the rights of a person. “If there is one silver lining in this situation,” Sean Tipton, the Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, told me “it’s that this will incentivize people to make decisions about their frozen embryos. Suddenly we’re seeing how easily control over the embryos your sperm and eggs created can be taken away from you, and frankly that should terrify everyone, not just patients who have embryos in freezers.”
This week I looked back at the contract I signed with my clinic and saw a clause that hadn’t registered with me back then: a decision would have to be made as to what to do with our embryos five years after completing the treatment. The clinic will only have to give us 30 days, the contract says, before taking control of our embryos. And what? Disposing of them? Moving them to a long term storage facility owned by ReproTech, one of the biggest embryo storage companies, which has storage facilities in Texas and Florida, states that haven’t been supportive of women’s reproductive rights, to say the least?
It’s not exactly clear what the consequences could be for women like me if other states follow Alabama’s lead. Even though the Alabama Legislature recently passed legislation to protect IVF, other states’ are up for grabs. Will women be forced to transfer their embryos? Or donate them? Will storing embryos be considered child abuse? Or even if none of these sci-fi scenarios plays out, there are other concerns. Dr. Eric J. Forman, the Medical and Laboratory Director, at Columbia University Fertility Center, fears that even if IVF doesn’t become illegal, it will be more challenging to practice effectively, making an already expensive procedure even more exorbitant. “What would happen if states limit the number of embryos that could be created through IVF?” he asked. “IVF is not a perfect process and it’s hard to predict. If we couldn’t make as many embryos it would take longer for women to get pregnant, it would be more work for the lab, and there would be lower success rates. This will drive up costs and limit how many people we can help.”
“And what if preimplantation genetic testing was outlawed?” Forman asked. Would clinics have to transfer all embryos, even those with diseases? Would there be more high risk pregnancies? More multiples? “It wouldn’t be the end of IVF, but an enormous setback to a lot of the advances we’ve had in the field that have made this process safer for our patients and their families.”
Even if I choose to keep our embryos in storage past the five-year mark, there was another clause I hadn’t read: After a woman turns 51, our clinic will no longer do an embryo transfer. I’ll be 47 this year. That gives me four more years to drag my feet. Four more years to punt the decision to a future version of myself who I hope is better equipped to choose. Four more years of frozen limbo.
In some twisted way, my feelings about my embryos align with Alabama lawmakers. I don’t feel comfortable discarding them. But I want the choice to be mine. I don’t want Alabama or Pennsylvania or any state or entity to make that decision for me.