Mississipi Women: Hurry Up And Start Your IVF!

Only four doctors in Mississippi perform in vitro fertilization, and since the state’s so-called “Personhood Amendment” was added to the November ballot, they’ve all been receiving panicked calls from patients about the possibility that the state constitution might soon make many IVF practices illegal.

While not every IVF procedure would become illegal if the measure passed, the fertility treatment would become more dangerous and less effective. Freezing of embryos would be banned, which means that women who need to undergo multiple courses of IVF in order to become pregnant would have to have eggs harvested each time, which is a painful and difficult process. Further, if Initiative 26 is implemented, it would dictate that every embryo that successfully fertilized be implanted in the uterus of the woman receiving the treatments and women wouldn’t be allowed to selectively reduce pregnancies, which could mean that The Magnolia State may soon become The Octomom State. That is, unless women simply decide to stop getting pregnant in Mississippi.

To be on the safe side, fertility doctors are recommending that women considering IVF make a decision quickly, as the procedure is poised to become much more difficult.

Personhood Ballot Initiative in Mississippi Could Ban Some IVF Practices [The Daily Beast]