‘Our lives are upended’: Alabama’s IVF ruling is already preventing people having children

Scott and his wife had gone through the arduous process of in vitro fertilisation once before. The couple, from Mobile in Alabama, have a young child who would not exist without the treatment.

Nearly two years after their first, and after many long conversations, they decided this month that they were ready to grow their family again, using the remaining embryos they had frozen and stored with their IVF clinic.

But just as the couple were about to start the procedure, Alabama’s Supreme Court issued a ruling that threatens the future of their family, and of IVF treatment in the state.

“It’s really terrifying to wake up one morning thinking about having a second child within a year or so, and then the