What Alabama ruling means for patients with frozen embryos: one woman’s story

Three of Kristia Rumbley’s embryos created at a clinic became her 7-year-old twins and 2-year-old son, while three have sat in freezers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for eight years in case she and her husband decide to have another kid. After Alabama’s supreme court ruled on Feb. 16 that embryos were children, leaving it unclear how to legally store, transport and use them, Rumbley, 44, is seeking legal and medical advice on sending her last two embryos out of state as soon as possible. The University of Alabama at Birmingham was the first of at least three in vitro fertilization providers in the state to halt treatments after the court ruling, saying it feared “our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments.”