What to know about Alabama's fast-tracked legislation to protect in vitro fertilization clinics

Alabama lawmakers are moving fast to approve measures this week to protect in vitro fertilization clinics from lawsuits in response to an uproar sparked by last month's state Supreme Court ruling that found frozen embryos have the rights of children under the state’s wrongful death law.

Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, is expected to sign one of the two bills into law.

Either of the two bills would give legal protection for fertility clinics, at least three of which paused IVF treatments after the court ruling to assess their new liability risks.

Here are things to know about the bills and the process of turning one of them into law.

WHAT'S IN THE LEGISLATION?

Both the state Senate and the House are advancing nearly identical legislation that would protect IVF providers and their employees from civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution over the destruction of or damage to an embryo.

Either measure, if signed into law, would take effect immediately and would apply retroactively to any past damage or destruction that is not already the subject of a lawsuit.

Lawmakers say IVF providers have told them the protections are enough to get them to resume services.

WHAT'S NOT ADDRESSED IN THE MEASURES?

The bills are silent on whether embryos outside the body are legally considered children.

In a February ruling to allow wrongful death lawsuits filed by couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the wrongful death law “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.” The ruling cited an anti-abortion provision added to the state constitution in 2018 that protects the “rights of unborn children.”

It's not new to apply wrongful death and other laws to fetuses and embryos. But it was a significant...