The LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine decision in Alabama endorsed legal personhood for frozen embryos created by I.V.F. With this type of fertility treatment, it is already costly for people facing infertility at around thirty thousand dollars out of pocket per cycle, and it is estimated at least a million embryos are in frozen storage across the U.S. Under this ruling, an embryo would have the same rights as a person under the Fourteenth Amendment.
“I could see restrictions being put in place to minimize embryo destruction in ways that will make I.V.F. more expensive,”
Katherine Kraschel, an assistant professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University’s School of Law, and WGSS executive committee member
