Alabama Ruling Fuels Fears of Embryo Transport Legal Battles

Alabama fertility patients and their health-care providers looking to transport embryos out of state risk becoming embroiled in interstate legal disputes after Alabama’s high court ruling recognizing unimplanted human embryos as children.

Reproductive health clinics are trying to navigate the legal uncertainty surrounding in vitro fertilization after the Alabama Supreme Court’s Feb. 16 decision on the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. The court said this law allows parents to recover punitive damages for their children’s deaths, and includes the parents of unborn children, regardless of the ability to survive outside the womb.

While the ruling ...