The bizarre episode was at the center of lawsuits filed by three families that eventually reached the Alabama Supreme Court. On Friday, a panel of judges ruled that the embryos destroyed at the clinic should be considered children under state law, a decision that sent shock waves through the fertility industry and raised urgent questions about how treatments could possibly proceed in the state.
Yet the accident in the Alabama clinic echoes a pattern of serious errors that happen all too frequently during fertility treatment, a rapidly growing industry with little government oversight, experts say. From January 2009 through April 2019, patients brought more than 130 lawsuits over destroyed embryos, including cases where embryos were lost, mishandled or stored in freezer tanks that broke down.
Those errors have taken on new gravity as the anti-abortion movement aims to extend “personhood” to fetuses and embryos conceived through in vitro fertilization, arguing that they are “unborn children” and bringing cases to an increasingly polarized judiciary open to considering the idea.
By Carly Mallenbaum, Axios [cites Surrogacy360] | 03.29.2026
Aggregated News
Without a federal law, surrogacy in the U.S. is governed by a patchwork of state regulations/
Why it matters: Confusing, varied local rules can determine everything from whether agreements are legally binding to who is recognized as a parent at...
By Judd Boaz and Elise Kinsella, ABC News | 03.17.2026
Aggregated News
Fertility experts warn further life-changing historical errors could be discovered in Australia's IVF industry, as DNA testing becomes more widespread and accessible.
Cathy Tie has an audacity more typical of a tech startup founder than a biotech executive. She dropped out of college to start a genetic screening company and later founded a telemedicine startup. The 29-year-old has been on two Forbes...
The Center for Genetics and Society is fiscally sponsored by Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Please visit www.tides.org/state-nonprofit-disclosures for additional information.
