MONTGOMERY, Ala. (NEWSnet/AP) — Two more in vitro fertilization providers in Alabama paused parts of their treatment Thursday after the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally considered children.

Alabama Fertility Services said in a statement Thursday that has “made the impossibly difficult decision to hold new IVF treatments due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists.”

The decision comes a day after the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system said in a statement that it was pausing IVF treatments so it could evaluate whether its patients or doctors could face criminal charges or punitive damages.

“We are contacting patients that will be affected today to find solutions for them and we are working as hard as we can to alert our legislators as to the far reaching negative impact of this ruling on the women of Alabama,” Alabama Fertility stated. “AFS will not close. We will continue to fight for our patients and the families of Alabama.”

Mobile Infirmary, a hospital in the Infirmary Health system, decided the Supreme Court ruling left the provider with no choice but to pause treatments, system President and CEO Mark Nix said in a statement.

Doctors and patients in the state have been trying to determine what they can and can’t do after the ruling by the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court that raises questions about the future of IVF.

“Disbelief, denial, all the stages of grief. ... I was stunned,” Dr. Michael C. Allemand, a reproductive endocrinologist at Alabama Fertility, said Wednesday.

Justices — citing language in the Alabama Constitution that the state recognizes the “rights of the unborn child” — said three couples could sue for wrongful death when their frozen embryos were destroyed in a accident at a storage facility.

“Unborn children are ‘children’ ... without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics,” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in Friday’s majority ruling.

Mitchell said the court had previously ruled that a fetus killed when a woman is pregnant is covered under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act and nothing excludes “extrauterine children from the Act’s coverage.”

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