A woman who had her IVF treatment interrupted after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children testified today in Washington in support of protections for the treatment.

Jamie Heard of Birmingham told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that she was diagnosed with a disorder that made it difficult to become pregnant. She and her husband used IVF to become pregnant with their son and had hoped to add another child. They met with their doctor on Feb. 14 to begin that process.

On Feb. 16, a majority on the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Child Act. Heard had just begun treatment to have another embryo transferred when the decision occurred. Her clinic and others around the state paused procedures to evaluate the legal risks.

“Our hopes broke, hearing the news of our clinic pausing treatments,” Heard said. “My heart breaks as I hear and read comments such as our health conditions are nature’s way of telling us we shouldn’t have kids.”

A bill to protect IVF treatment access across the country has faced opposition from Republican members of Congress. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., blocked a vote on the bill, arguing that it went too far and could expose anti-abortion and religious groups to lawsuits.

Heard spoke at a hearing focused on reproductive health care after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Another speaker talked about her inability to get access to an abortion in Texas after her fetus developed a fatal birth defect.

Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said today that they supported IVF, but some accused Democrats of using the issue as a weapon. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said the hearing was not about IVF, but about access to abortion.

“There is no effort by anybody that I know of in the Republican Party in Washington, D.C. to shut down fertility clinics,” Graham said. “Quite the opposite. We appreciate this as a formal way of bringing life into the world for couples who are having a very difficult time conceiving a child otherwise.”

Democrats said the Alabama IVF ruling was one example of how losing federal protections for abortion has affected reproductive health care. The committee chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, said the fall of Roe vs. Wade opened the door to disruptions in IVF treatment in Alabama.

“With a single ruling, the right wing majority overruled nearly five decades of legal precedent and revoked a Constitutional right for the first time in history,” Durbin said. “In the years leading up to Dobbs, we were warned of the dangers of overruling Roe vs. Wade. Medical experts told us it would unleash a healthcare crisis across America.”

Although lawmakers in Alabama rushed to pass a state bill that provides legal immunity to doctors and patients involved in fertility treatment, Heard said she still worries about how the ruling could affect her family.

“Now my husband and I are filled with so much uncertainty about expanding our family without the risk of being prosecuted,” Heard said. “All these questions and all these decisions regarding my body and my family are being decided by those who aren’t here with me to fight the anguish of infertility.”

Heard said she would support efforts by Congress to protect access to IVF treatment.

“IVF is medically necessary care due to my and many other people’s circumstances,” Heard said. “Access to medical treatments without restrictions is a basic human right.”

Lourdes Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice, said the idea of fetal personhood, which extends rights to fertilized eggs, led to Alabama’s IVF decision.

“Ten years ago, the Alabama Supreme Court held that embryos and fetuses are the same as children under the state’s criminal child abuse laws and that pregnant women can be charged as child abusers from the moment of fertilization,” Rivera said. “And while shocking, it is hardly surprising that the Alabama Supreme Court would extend this reasoning to frozen embryos.”