First Baby Born Via IVF In U.S. Calls Out Alabama Ruling: 'Embryos Are Not Children'
Source: Huff Post
Feb 27, 2024, 06:56 PM EST
Elizabeth Carr fears that she’s an “endangered species” because of the Alabama Supreme Court’s controversial ruling on reproductive rights.
On Monday, WBUR-FM, Boston’s NPR news station, published an essay by Carr, who made headlines around the world in 1981 when she became the first baby to be born in the U.S. through in vitro fertilization. In her essay, Carr challenged the state court’s ruling that frozen embryos should legally be considered “children.”
“Last week’s ruling was clearly written without a true understanding of the IVF procedure and a total disregard for the science of assisted reproductive technology,” Carr wrote. “No one understands better than the infertility community that embryos are not children. Success in IVF means bringing home a baby, not solely creating embryos.” Carr described embryos as “simply one of many complicated steps one has to take in order to even have a chance of having a live birth.”
She pointed out that IVF is “a complicated multi-step process” that not only includes “hormone injections, egg retrieval and an embryo transfer” but also demands “financial resources, timing, science and scheduling.” “And now the Alabama Supreme Court has made it more challenging for Alabamians to have an IVF baby in 2024 than it was for my parents in 1981. Science should move us forward, not backward,” Carr wrote.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/first-us-ivf-baby-calls-out-alabama-ruling-embryos_n_65de4a93e4b0189a6a7faf1d
Judith Carr holds her newborn daughter, Elizabeth, alongside her husband, Roger Carr, in 1981.Bettmann via Getty Images
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