Alabama Attorney General's Office: No plans to prosecute IVF ...

The Alabama Attorney General’s office said in a statement Friday that they are not planning to prosecute families or providers for IVF services.

“Attorney General Marshall has no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting IVF families or providers,” Chief Counsel Katherine Robertson wrote in a statement.

The announcement came a week after an Alabama Supreme Court decision that led to the closing of IVF programs in the state and mounting national criticism from Democrats and, on Friday, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. 

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that families could sue their IVF clinic for “wrongful death of a minor.” Chief Justice Jay Mitchell said there was no exception for frozen embryos under an 1872 law that allows civil suits for wrongful deaths of children or under a 2018 constitutional amendment that requires the state to ensure the protections of fetuses.

Since the ruling, at least three clinics have stopped offering IVF services due to the opinion.

Alabama officials Friday also distanced themselves from the court’s ruling and expressed a hope to see the issue resolved.

“Following the ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court, I said that in our state, we work to foster a culture of life,” Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “This certainly includes some couples hoping and praying to be parents who utilize IVF.”

In the Legislature, both chambers and parties have worked on legislation.

Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence, the chair of the Alabama Senate’s Healthcare Committee, said Thursday he would file a bill toclarify that embryos are not viable until they are in a uterus. House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, filed a bill Thursday that says that a fertilized egg or embryo would not “be considered an unborn child, a minor child, a natural person, or any other term that connotes a human being for any purpose under state law.”

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, who struggled to answer questions about the ruling on Thursday, said in a post Friday on X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter, that he had spoken with Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, on a potential fix. 

“We want everyone to have the opportunity to have kids,” the statement said. “IVF will remain legal and available in Alabama.”

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said that they have raised concerns about the legislation from the Republican supermajority for years.

“This is theirs,” Singleton said, “They need to fix it.”