In Health Law Weekly, Attorneys Examine Embryonic Personhood and Scientific Research Following Alabama Supreme Court IVF Decision

In The News
March 18, 2024

In the American Health Law Association’s Health Law Weekly article, health care partner David Peloquin, counsel Leslie Thornton and associate Nathaniel Jaffe examined issues of embryonic personhood and scientific research following the Alabama Supreme Court’s landmark decision in LePage, et al. v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, which affirmed the legal personhood of embryos under Alabama law.

The LePage ruling and the subsequent political attention to embryonic personhood has the potential to significantly affect scientific research that relies on IVF-derived embryos, such as for the creation of human stem cell lines.

The article discusses topics including the legal context of the LePage decision; effects on research; and recommendations for researchers making use of human embryonic tissue.