Nearly two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, some fear access to in vitro fertilization could be at risk.
About 1 in 6 people globally suffer from infertility and millions of couples have used IVF to start or grow their families.
Dr. Meaghan Bowling is the IVF director at Carolina Conceptions in Raleigh, where more than 9,000 women have been able to have a child through in vitro fertilization – the process of combining sperm and egg in a lab and transferring the embryo to a uterus.
Dr. Bowling says recent opposition to IVF has been unsettling.
"It's a pro-family medical treatment and for that to be taken away and the hope and dreams of a patient to have that family and have that baby, it would just be devastating," Bowling said.
Southern Baptists, the nation's largest protestant denomination, voted this week to formally oppose IVF this week, lamenting that the creation of surplus frozen embryos often results in “destruction of embryonic human life.”
"That it simply isn't true that doctors and embryologists are discarding embryos frequently," Bowling said. "It's almost unheard of to discard embryos. Most patients need multiple embryos just to have one baby, so this idea that one embryo equals one baby is not true.
The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina said in a statement that it affirms “the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage.”
Thursday, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill that would protect IVF nationwide.
"Every woman, regardless of her zip code, has the right to plan her family," said Rep. Deborah Ross, who is in favor of federal IVF protections.
North Carolina Senators Thom Tillis and Ted Budd issued a statement saying: “We strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF” and accused Democrats of fearmongering.
"The consequence of the Dobbs decision is that we now have this checkerboard of rights for women and they're at the mercy of state legislators, of state courts, and that is simply wrong," Ross said.
23 bills establishing fetal personhood have been introduced in 13 states this year alone.
"I think if you equate a human embryo with life, it puts our job in jeopardy and it puts the patient's ability to have IVF to have a baby at risk," Bowling said.
In February, the Alabama Supreme Court gave frozen embryos the legal status of children and IVF providers temporarily shut down in the state.
Since then, 10 states including Alabama have introduced bills to protect IVF providers and patients.