State Rep. Corey Harbison is one of the many state legislators working overtime to address the fallout from the Alabama Supreme Court’s recent embryo related ruling that has caused the vast majority of in vitro fertilization treatments in the state to be put on hold.
In an interview with Yellowhammer News, Harbison (R-Cullman) delivered a blunt assessment on the effect of the high court’s decision.
“It’s got the potential to be really devastating to Alabama families,” he said.
Harbison, whose has children born through IVF treatments, firmly believes the treatment supports life.
“People spend $50-60,000, mortgage everything they have, rent scrape, whatever to try to bring life into the world,” he said. “In vitro is as pro-life as you can get.”
Among those seeking to find a solution to the ruling is Attorney General Steve Marshall, who said he would not be criminally prosecuting any entity or individual for providing or receiving IVF treatments.
Harbison said that he isn’t convinced the announcement will do much to reopen the state’s clinics.
“It still has to be fixed because you still have district attorney’s in every county that can go after people,” he said. “At the end of the day the clinics, the hospitals, the doctors they’re not going to do it because of just the civil liability with that ruling.
“I don’t know that him saying that is going to make much of a difference because you still have the prosecutors who have the intention to prosecute and then like I said you may have civil stuff arise out of it.”
However, Harbison did say if someone unrelated to the embryo purposely destroys it, that person should be held accountable.
“Now, I do think that when the judges we’re looking at it and the case they were looking at there was somebody that when in and had destroyed the embryos,” Harbison said. “If you’re intent is to go in and destroy. You’re obviously in no way affiliated with it- they’re not yours, they don’t belong to you or your husband, wife, or partner in the medical clinic then there obviously needs to be repercussions for that.”
He also acknowledged there is one issue regarding IVF that has caused some concern among pro-life advocates.
“When people have embryos left, you have several options,” Harbison said. “You can obviously adopt out those embryos to a family that can’t genetically have kids. You can donate them to science to help learn about and improve the in vitro process. You can pay rent on storage until as long as you want to.
“I think that’s the only pro-life question that you have.”
Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.
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