Emily Capilouto, 36, also cried because of the ruling, but her tears were prompted by despair. She had struggled for years to have a child. Now she was nearing the end of an I.V.F. cycle, when one of the embryos she and her husband had produced would be transferred to her uterus. But on Wednesday, she learned that her clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system was halting I.V.F. treatments in response to the ruling.
“I don’t know what this means now,” Ms. Capilouto said on Wednesday, minutes after learning that her dream of having a child would be indefinitely suspended.
Questions like hers are echoing across the country after the court’s ruling, which was handed down Feb. 16. The potential national implications remain unclear, but many women in Alabama are wondering how this new classification for embryos — one rooted in a religious belief — will affect their own journeys toward motherhood, a process that for many who seek I.V.F. is already filled with emotional and physical pain.
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