Very important for ladies with IF and those who want to support us! Please read!

zwink1 · February 2017

@Knottie83687999 So there's nothing in either bill that directly says the word "infertility." As @Tennis11785 pointed out, the potential problem is the language as to when personhood comes into effect. Both bills use language that places personhood at "conception" ("the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual comes into being." HR 681, "each human life begins with fertilization, cloning, or its equivalent, at which time every human has all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood." HR 586).

The problem with the language is not that it overtly encompasses infertility, but rather that IVF necessarily includes "fertilization" and possibly "moment at which an individual comes into being." So if that's the definition of a person, what about the embryos that are never implanted (by definition they're fertilized)? In fact, with IVF, the very act of fertilizing the eggs, outside of the womb, under this definition would give the embryos the same human rights as you.

So no, nothing in the bills specifically outlaws IVF, but bills have unintended (or covertly intended) consequences, and that's what is encompassed here. I admittedly have not done enough research to understand the basis behind these bills. However, on a purely textual front, fertility treatments come under their purview.

And really (while I typically tend to prefer to play devil's advocate) few legislators are going to come out and admit that their bill inhibits IVF. It runs counter to the family-centric ideal. Legislators aren't keen on throwing the actual purpose of proposed laws out there... if they were, favors to lobbyists wouldn't be buried in budget bills.

breezybee · February 2017

Done!

*edited to add my sweet GIF

LadyMillil · February 2017

Like others have said, the bills don't explicitly say anything about IVF however they could have unintended consequences for those pursuing IVF. People pursuing IVF typically have no other means of building a family, and less invasive procedures have either failed or are not an option.

During the IVF process the goal is to create several embryos in the lab - the doctors will take eggs from the woman and sperm from the men and fertilize the eggs in a lab dish. Not all fertilized eggs grow beyond the first day or so due to things like chromosome abnormalitie (which happens inside the body as well). The goal of most REs is to have 3-5 embryos that could be transferred back to the uterus. Usually 1 embryo is transferred back to the uterus and the rest are frozen for later use. Sometimes the couple carries a known genetic disease or has had a high number of miscarriages so they chose to biopsy the embryos to confirm that they are chromosomally normal or don't have the genetic condition before transferring them back to the uterus. If couples have extra embryos left after IVF there are several options for what to do with them including donation and discarding them. The proposed bills could have impacts on each step of IVF - preventing freezing of embryos, requiring you to transfer all embryos back to the uterus at once which increases risks to mom and babies (I have a friend that had 18 embryos after her IVF cycle), preventing genetic screening, etc.

Bababatty · February 2017

@LadyMillil said it better than I ever could have.

@Knottie83687999 You should also look at Resolve's stance on this issue, which is where OP's email was drawn from. Resolve is the National Infertility Association. They have a stance on personhood bills, like these two: https://www.resolve.org/about/personhood-legislation.html

Note that this stance was written in response to personhood bills at the state level but still applies here.

eggplantface · February 2017

The problematic language is the vagueness of "at which time every human has all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood." So can an embryologist use a laser to cut open a person and extract some cells for genetic testing without the person's consent? Does that constitute an illegal search? Can they then freeze a person for an indefinite period of time? Is that "cruel and unusual punishment"? What if the person doesn't want to be implanted into its mother? It has a right to live wherever it wants, right? What if the embryologist trips over a chair while walking through the lab with an embryo and the embryo is destroyed. Does the embryologist get charged with murder?

While satirical, these are all valid questions that need to be defined before such a bill is passed, because all of these constitute unintended consequences of such a vague law. Fertility clinics would have to stop doing IVF until all these legal questions are sorted out to avoid liability or criminal charges, and then there goes my chance for a baby.

Tennis11785 · February 2017

I think this language is also vague enough that it could have consequences outside of fertility treatment.

If a fertilized egg is a person and a person, what happens in a miscarriage? If my body has some sort of medical problem that does not allow the fertilized egg to implant or can't support an egg into development, am I charged with murder of said egg? Even if I did everything right?

What about situations where it's an ectopic pregnancy. In those cases, the woman's life could be at risk of that fertilized egg isn't removed from the fallopian tube. But the bill could prevent doctors from performing that life-saving procedure because it could harm that fertilized egg (which because it has implanted into the tube and not the uterus so it wouldn't be able to grow or develop into living-outside-the-body being anyway).

kiwi2628 · February 2017

Tennis11785 said:

I think this language is also vague enough that it could have consequences outside of fertility treatment.

If a fertilized egg is a person and a person, what happens in a miscarriage? If my body has some sort of medical problem that does not allow the fertilized egg to implant or can't support an egg into development, am I charged with murder of said egg? Even if I did everything right?

What about situations where it's an ectopic pregnancy. In those cases, the woman's life could be at risk of that fertilized egg isn't removed from the fallopian tube. But the bill could prevent doctors from performing that life-saving procedure because it could harm that fertilized egg (which because it has implanted into the tube and not the uterus so it wouldn't be able to grow or develop into living-outside-the-body being anyway).

Exactly. Which is why law should GTFO of medicine. Politicians do not understand all the intricacies of medical practice.

eggplantface · February 2017

Tennis11785 said:

I think this language is also vague enough that it could have consequences outside of fertility treatment.

If a fertilized egg is a person and a person, what happens in a miscarriage? If my body has some sort of medical problem that does not allow the fertilized egg to implant or can't support an egg into development, am I charged with murder of said egg? Even if I did everything right?

What about situations where it's an ectopic pregnancy. In those cases, the woman's life could be at risk of that fertilized egg isn't removed from the fallopian tube. But the bill could prevent doctors from performing that life-saving procedure because it could harm that fertilized egg (which because it has implanted into the tube and not the uterus so it wouldn't be able to grow or develop into living-outside-the-body being anyway).

Image: https://media.giphy.com/media/7rj2ZgttvgomY/giphy.gif

Very dark sarcasm: And if the doctor isn't allowed to perform the life-saving surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy, does the embryo get charged with involuntary manslaughter?

[Deleted User] · February 2017

The funny thing is that in response to many of the good questions you ladies have about the potential problems (Like if you have an ectopic, would removing the fetus be murder?) with such wording and legislation, many of the politicians would say "Of COURSE not!" But if these examples are NOT what would happen... then they don't REALLY believe embryos are equal to that of adults/babies. If you throw a baby in a dumpster and it dies obviously that is murder... so why would disposing of extra unwanted embryos after IVF (because you better believe I would never in a million years transfer 18 embryos) not be murder - if you TRULY believe that an embryo is a baby?

The answer is that of course they know the two are not the same. Which makes pushing this legislation all the more infuriating.

Sorry to probably get more controversial than intended... but let's real.

stillclever17 · February 2017

I love you guys.

tamalahoops · February 2017

antoto said:

The funny thing is that in response to many of the good questions you ladies have about the potential problems (Like if you have an ectopic, would removing the fetus be murder?) with such wording and legislation, many of the politicians would say "Of COURSE not!" But if these examples are NOT what would happen... then they don't REALLY believe embryos are equal to that of adults/babies. If you throw a baby in a dumpster and it dies obviously that is murder... so why would disposing of extra unwanted embryos after IVF (because you better believe I would never in a million years transfer 18 embryos) not be murder - if you TRULY believe that an embryo is a baby?

The answer is that of course they know the two are not the same. Which makes pushing this legislation all the more infuriating.

Sorry to probably get more controversial than intended... but let's real.

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Very important for ladies with IF and those who want to support us! Please read!

Re: Very important for ladies with IF and those who want to support us! Please read!

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