Ohio Republicans introduce bill that could ban IVF by recognizing ‘personhood’ from conception

By: Morgan Trau - July 13, 2022 3:35 am

A medical exam room. File photo from MaxPixels.net.

The following article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.

Ohio House Republicans introduced a new bill Monday that physicians worry would ban in vitro fertilization (IVF).

H.B. 704, sponsored by state Rep. Gary Click, a Republican from Vickery, would recognize “personhood” from the moment of conception.

“Nothing in this section shall be interpreted in any manner that would endanger the life of a mother,” the three-sentence bill stated.

This wouldn’t be the first time the Ohio GOP wanted to change the definition of personhood.

In H.B. 598, the total abortion ban that many Republicans are expecting to go into place in the winter, specifies that an “unborn child” refers to an “individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth.”

“House Bill 598 may erase the dreams of many patients of becoming parents through IVF or other reproductive technologies,” Dr. Thomas Burwinkel, an OB/GYN specializing in IVF, said during opponent testimony on May 26.

Most embryo created for IVF specifically will not survive to be implanted, Burwinkel said.

“The definition of “unborn child” contained in the bill leaves us to question if discarding unused embryos would be considered a criminal act,” he said.

Some of the embryos are non-viable, and thus discarded. Under this bill, that could be considered an abortion, the doctor continued.

“Our IVF practices are having enough difficulties finding trained embryologists and physicians to work with us,” he said. “If the risk of going to jail is possible doing your daily job functions, are you going to work in Ohio?”

There will be a “chilling” impact on Ohioans if they have to transfer multiple embryos, he said. This would lead to triplet, quadruplet, quintuplet or more pregnancies.

“These patients would not have the option under this bill to make these very high-risk pregnancies safer through the use of selective reduction,” he said. “This is a medical procedure used to reduce the number of embryos to a number that is safer for her and her fetuses.”

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Morgan Trau

Morgan Trau is a political reporter and multimedia journalist based out of the WEWS Columbus Bureau. A graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Trau has previously worked as an investigative, political and fact-checking reporter in Grand Rapids, Mich. at WZZM-TV; a reporter and MMJ in Spokane, Wash. at KREM-TV and has interned at 60 Minutes and worked for CBS Interactive and PBS NewsHour.