Politics and Therapy go hand in hand. Controversial hook line, stay with me…
This week the headline hit “Alabama Rules Frozen Embryos Are Children, Raising Questions About Fertility Care”. As a Texas Therapist, you may wonder why headlines like this impact my therapy sessions, and clients.
Who is Impacted
Currently, there are 1:6 couples (data is measured in the heterosexual couple population) in the Global World Health Report from the WHO. This number may be familiar to you as 1:8 but the current data reflects an uptick. Individuals and families are faced with ethical, financial, emotional, spiritual, and sexual health decisions in family building. In therapy, we work together to navigate the exploration of how these issues impact individuals and couples and explore how to make decisions with confidence in family building.
Why I Care & Frankly Think You Should Too
There are long-term consequences of these legislative decisions and we as fertility care providers are all aware that one ruling like this causes other states to take note. This ruling will increase the liability and accessibility for IVF clinics which will impact the 1:6 couples I referenced earlier. When a person faces infertility they make choices each day, each cycle, and each transfer carefully. Each choice in the process is delicately balanced through the lens of risk and hope. To add in the new definition of risk with this legislation adds a new dimension of legal risk and recourse for individuals with infertility as well as infertility providers and clinics.
Statement from The American Society of Reproductive Medicine
On February 18, 2024 The American Society of Reproductive Medicine released a statement by Dr. Paula Amato, President of ASRM called this ruling “medically and scientifically unfounded” and shared their stance on the impact. Dr. Amato shared that “If the policy outcomes mandated under this decision stand, the consequences will be profound. Modern fertility care will be unavailable to the people of Alabama, needlessly blocking them from building the families they want. The choice to build a family is a fundamental right for all Americans, regardless of where they live. We cannot, therefore, allow this dangerous precedent of judicial overreach with national implications to go unchecked.”
As a Therapist I Care About:
Client Advocacy: how do state and national legislation support and improve access to all family-building options?
Access to Care: Who and where are providers that provide care to individuals or couples with fertility-related challenges? How do we support the work they are doing and ensure they can keep serving in the fertility community? What happens in Alabama for families who aren’t able to access care across state lines? How does the financial impact of fertility care discriminate and impact access to care? What are the struggles with gaps in insurance coverage for treatment?
Support and Community: Therapy allows individuals and couples struggling with infertility to process the impact of fertility care dimensionally in a safe and confidential space. Clients should be aware of all family-building options available and understand the short-term and long-term consent in each step of their process.
Education: Therapy allows individuals to process feelings about family-building options and process where they may need to expand accessibility to evidence-based information about fertility and family building.
Authors Note: The beliefs shared in this blog are mine (Emily Morehead) and are informed from a space of evidence-based best practice training from The American Society of Reproductive Medicine and the University of Michigan’s Sexual Health Certificate Program. I write to you today an individual who was 1:6. I am a parent to a child who was conceived through reproductive assistance. I serve in this community as a therapist and exist in this community as an individual who proudly built their family through reproductive assistance.
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