Life in storage

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up next, taking on the in-vitro fertilization industry.

A lawsuit in Utah argues embryos created through IVF deserve stronger legal protection—and could reshape how clinics operate. 

WORLD’s Lauren Canterberry reports.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: When Ashley Jensen and her husband began trying to get pregnant, they found themselves among the roughly 1 in 8 couples who struggle.

Jensen’s OBGYN ran some tests. When her bloodwork came back normal, the doctor made an unexpected suggestion.

JENSEN: You can just go to the IVF clinic. And I was like, everything’s normal, go to IVF? Like those just don’t go together.

Jensen worked as a nurse at her OBGYN’s office and volunteered at a birth center. She knew enough about the complexities of reproduction to question why her doctor went straight to suggesting IVF.

JENSEN: Medically didn’t make sense to me.

IVF providers perform hundreds of thousands of treatments every year in the United States. But some patients wish they had been given more information about the true odds of success. Many more say providers failed to explain how many of their embryos will die or be discarded before they can be implanted.

The Utah-based organization Voice for the Voiceless hopes the new lawsuit will change that. Last month, the organization that ministers to women and couples considering abortion, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against seven Utah IVF clinics. A woman who underwent IVF joined the suit.

Frank Mylar represents the plaintiffs in the case.

FRANK MYLAR: I don’t think that there is an understanding of a lot of the parents, exactly how many they are discarding.

Most doctors will only transfer embryos considered' normal' after genetic testing. The Reproductive Medicine Associates Network says only about 25% of embryos created in a typical IVF cycle fall in that category. The remaining embryos either died shortly after fertilization or are discarded if genetic testing shows potential chromosomal abnormalities. 

While some IVF clinics may implant more than one healthy embryo at a time, most only choose to implant the embryo the doctor has determined to be the strongest. From there, patients may freeze their remaining embryos or discard those that they do not plan to implant.

MYLAR: Very few, if any labs are really choosing ethics over expediency and cost savings. There is a way that you could do IVF that we say wouldn’t violate Utah law.

Though Utah only protects unborn babies from abortion after 18 weeks of pregnancy, the state protects all people’s rights “regardless of age, development, condition, or dependency.” 

Mylar and the plaintiffs hope a court will uphold that law and affirm that it extends to embryos created through IVF.

Kriss Martenson is the founder and director of Voice for the Voiceless.

KRISS MARTENSON: So that’s what this lawsuit is. It’s not to make new law, it’s just to uphold the law that we already have on the books.

While Martenson is an abolitionist and wants to see abortion and IVF ended completely, he says this case has a different goal. 

He and the other plaintiff want IVF clinics to stop making more embryos than they plan to implant, and to stop destroying them or allowing them to die.

MARTENSON: Ultimately what I want is for Utah to have equal protections and for us to win. And other states would be able to look at the wording in their legislation and be more specific for what human beings are and their equal rights.

Mylar and Martenson pointed to what is called "ethical IVF" as a potential alternative. Doctors who use the method only fertilize the number of eggs that the couple plans to implant during the same cycle. While traditional IVF may have more immediate success, ethical IVF avoids intentionally destroying or freezing human life.

Voice for the Voiceless also hopes that the case will bring more attention to alternative reproductive medicine.

That’s the route Ashley Jensen and her husband decided to pursue instead of IVF. As she sought other doctor’s opinions, Jensen learned about Natural Procreative Technology, or NaPro. It focuses on determining and treating the root causes of a woman’s infertility.

JENSEN: Wow, this sounds really great. Their kind of slogan is "infertility is not a diagnosis, it’s a symptom.”

During her first call to a clinic, a nurse said she likely had endometriosis, a condition her doctors had never suggested.

JENSEN: I did end up having surgery for endometriosis. I had really bad endo, my surgery was like six hours long. And then I got pregnant four months later after my surgery.

The Jensens have three children now and she practices Restorative Reproductive Medicine.

Treating the underlying causes can improve the chances of having a healthy baby, regardless of if a couple chooses to pursue IVF. 

But she says she’s learned her patients’ doctors often don’t incorporate any methods besides IVF.

JENSEN: If you can just muster up enough money to do IVF, like that it will be your ticket. You’ll get pregnant. And that obviously is not the case for everyone.

Back in Utah, the plaintiffs are waiting to see how the case will proceed. So far, the defendants have not filed a response and a court has yet to weigh in.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

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