the woman who to sue A Texas woman plans to transfer her frozen embryos out of state, fearing that Texas will end in vitro fertilization, after doctors told her she was dying when she delayed a medically necessary abortion, she told NBC News exclusively.
The move by Amanda Zurawski and her husband Josh at at least three fertility clinics in Alabama paused followed by in vitro fertilization treatments a judgment by the state Supreme Court found that embryos are human beings with the same legal protections as children, and that humans can be held liable for destroying them.
Zurawski, 36, said Thursday that she and her husband signed papers to transfer their embryos out of state because she fears Texas could follow Alabama’s lead and prevent her from starting the family she’s been trying to build for years.
“I don’t want them to be in a situation where a similar verdict is likely to happen,” she said of her embryos. “Everything about IVF is very worrying. It’s very scary. It’s very difficult, and sentences like this one in Alabama add another layer of fear and anxiety.
He added that he is concerned about the impact of the ruling on patients in Alabama.
“My heart breaks for every hopeful parent in Alabama and beyond, because this will not stop in Alabama. This will have a snowball effect,” he said.
Zurawski is one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Texas, which challenges the state’s almost total abortion ban and seeks to give the state more discretion to intervene in the event of medical complications. Zurawski he said she nearly died in August 2022 when doctors refused to abort her when she was 18 weeks pregnant with catastrophic complications. In the end, Zuravsky’s health deteriorated and the doctors performed an abortion. But he developed serious infections that led to sepsis and sent him to the intensive care unit within three days, he said.
Since then, Zurawski and her husband have turned to in vitro fertilization and are hoping to have a baby via surrogate after doctors advised her not to try again. She said she went through three egg retrievals and currently has two frozen embryos.
But he said he worries Texas laws will once again affect his travel.
“It’s absolutely terrifying,” Zurawski said. “But it’s also very infuriating because the same people who supported the bans that nearly killed me are in the same camp and are now trying to make it harder for people like me to start a family.”
Zurawski said that shortly after the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling, he investigated other clinics willing to take embryos as far away as Texas and companies willing to transport them. According to him, the process costs thousands of dollars.
“I think about people in Alabama who are thinking about doing the same thing, and it’s not an option for everybody,” he said. “IVF itself is very expensive. And then, adding an extra layer of potential need to transport them. It’s just another expense. It’s more logistics. It’s more of an unknown.”
Zurawski declined to say where he transferred his embryos.
“It’s to protect us,” he said of the decision not to disclose where the embryos will be transported. “This is to protect our embryos. This is to protect everyone who can participate in our family planning.”
Meanwhile, Elisabeth Smith, director of public policy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Zurawski and several other plaintiffs, said the Alabama Supreme Court decision was “extremely troubling.”
“It undermines people’s ability to make their own family planning decisions through IVF,” Smith said. “It’s Roe v. Wade is part of the chaos that will ensue if it is repealed. The fact that politicians are at the helm instead of doctors is a crisis related to reproductive health.”
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion was banned or severely restricted for several years. dozens of statesAccording to NBC News estimates.