is IVF next?

In vitro fertilization is already a grueling path to pregnancy. With embryos gaining new legal protections, it could become a criminal one

- JILL FILIPOVIC

Sitting in an exam room preparing for another round of in vitro fertilization wasn’t where Elizabeth planned to be in June 2022, days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the legal right to abortion in America. The next year would be a crucial one for making partner at her law firm, and she already had a 16-month-old daughter at home. Not to mention that, after two years of infertility, followed by the difficult process of IVF and then new parenthood, she’d been looking forward to a relaxing summer: family beach trips, a vacation with her girlfriends, watching her daughter’s budding personality take shape.

Instead, Elizabeth, who’s 34 and asked to use a pseudonym for fear of future legal liability, had decided with her husband to accelerate their plans for a second child. Their home state of Louisiana had a trigger law that criminalized abortion the moment the Supreme Court overturned Roe, and Elizabeth feared IVF could be next. The couple had five embryos left over from their first foray into fertility medicine, and they’d been considering trying IVF again in the fall or early 2023. But prompted by the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Elizabeth was at the clinic, preparing for a mid-summer implantation. The couple hoped they’d still be able to choose what to do with the remaining embryos if this one led to a baby. “We have one precious daughter that we had through IVF,” Elizabeth says. “We don’t want five more.”