Dear Georgia Residents,
RESOLVE: the National Infertility Association needs your urgent and immediate action on a bill introduced in the Georgia State Senate. The Bill is SB 169 and would severely impact the ability for a patient to receive treatment for infertility in Georgia.
Senate Bill 169 would restrict doctors' ability to perform IVF in
accordance with best medical standards. Here are the key provisions:
- No more than 2 or 3 eggs could ever be fertilized in a cycle; if a woman produced more eggs, they still could not be used.
- Only 2 embryos could ever be transferred to the uterus, unless the woman is age 40 or over (then a max of 3).
- No extra embryos could be cryopreserved. If they are created, they have to be transferred.
- No financial relief, such as insurance coverage, is proposed to help
with the added financial burden of using less effective treatment.
Patients will still have to pay out of pocket for less effective
treatment.
- Bans all financial compensation for donor gametes, such as egg donor,
sperm donor, or embryo donation, which would greatly reduce the pool of
available donors in Georgia.
The Georgia Senate Health & Human Services Committee will hold a hearing on this bill: SB 169 this Thursday, March 5, at 9:00 AM in Room 450 of the State Capitol. At the hearing, the committee will hear testimony on the bill. RESOLVE will be testifying as will a number of physicians in Georgia. RESOLVE and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) oppose. this bill and consider it bad medicine for infertility patients. The hearing is open to the public and RESOLVE encourages you to attend the hearing and send a letter to the Committee members before Thursday. To send a letter immediately, click here:
https://secure2.convio.net/
RESOLVE is asking Georgia residents who care about open access to the
best care possible to let the Committee members know before Thursday
that you oppose these two bills. To send a letter or fax to the
Committee, simply click https://secure2.convio.net/
for a letter template that will be automatically sent to each of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee members. You can also call your state Senator even if they are not on the Committee and tell them you oppose these two bills. A full list of the Committee members can be found by clicking on the link below, then clicking on the Senators name for a link to their direct contact information:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/
To find your senator, please go to:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/
Sincerely yours,
Barbara Collura
Executive Director, RESOLVE
To view the full text of the bills please follow the links below:
SB 169: http://www.legis.state.ga.us/
Those limits for embryo transfer make sense to me. Some countries have a policy of single embryo transfer, as it's deemed safer for the mothers and children.
Posted by: Mark Lyndon | March 04, 2009 at 08:33 AM
Great point about the safety for moms. The difference is that in those countries, there is some coverage mandated, so more than one cycle is a reasonable possibility. Not so in most states in the US, where one IVF cycle can eat up $12K.
Posted by: Angie | March 04, 2009 at 11:14 AM
I completely understand everyone's concern about wanting to prohibit another octomom situation, but this legislation in GA goes beyond just limiting the number of embryos transferred. Instead, it seeks to control the number of embryos CREATED in the first place.
For instance, no matter how many eggs you produce, you can only fertilize the number you plan to transfer during this cycle...no more than 2 if you are under 40 and no more than 3 if you are over 40. Unfortunately, biology doesn't work like this. You don't know beforehand which eggs will fertilize and which embryos will grow. As a result, you need the ability to create more embryos to ensure a successful IVF cycle as well as have the opportunity to cryo-preserve some for family-building later.
This law would severely limit the number of embryos that could be created in the state of Georgia resulting in significantly lower success rates and higher costs to patients for additional cycles. Most likely, patients would opt to get treatment elsewhere outside of Georgia.
I'm off to the Capitol tomorrow so I will keep everyone updated as to the future of this legislation. Thanks so much for your comments!
All the best,
Evelina
Posted by: Evelina W. Sterling, PhD, MPH, CHES | March 04, 2009 at 01:26 PM