Lawmakers to debate ‘Octuplet mom’ bill

A bill intended to make sure Georgia never has a mother like the Californian who recently gave birth to eight children is scheduled to come before a Senate committee Thursday.

Senate Bill 169 would limit the number of embryos fertility clinics may implant in a woman. It is among the first legislation of its kind in the nation.

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Sponsor Sen. Ralph Hudgens (R-Hull) said he proposed the bill after learning of Nadya Suleman’s decision to have multiple children through in-vitro fertilization when she already had six children and was on public assistance.

“I think it’s totally immoral,” Hudgens said. “I think the doctor ought to be prosecuted, and the woman should give them [the children] up for adoption.”

The bill has drawn opposition from out-of-state advocacy groups, including a Virginia organization that sought to rally opposition to the bill Wednesday by e-mail. The McLean, Va.-based Resolve: the National Infertility Association argues S.B. 169 would make it much harder for infertile women to have children by limiting the number of embryos that could be implanted.

The proposal was drafted by the Arizona-based Bioethics Defense Fund, which opposes embryonic stem cell research, abortion, human cloning and assisted suicide. It also has drawn opposition from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

“The bill says that decisions about how to treat [infertility] patients will not be made by patients in consultation with their physicians, but by politicians,” said Sean Tipton, public affairs director for the society.

Georgia supporters of abortion rights also oppose the bill. They argue it is a back-door attempt to outlaw abortion because it defines embryos as “biological human beings.”

Chad Smith, a former Snellville city councilman and father of three, said that under the proposal, his wife would have been barred from having the four embryos implanted that gave the couple their triplets.

“It’s government getting into personal lives,” Smith said. “These bills take all decisions out of the hands of the doctors. The bills are incredibly irresponsible and uneducated bills.”

Under Hudgens’ bill, women older than 40 would be limited to three embryonic implants. Women younger than 40 would be limited to two.

The bill would also limit creation of embryos to the number that would be implanted at any one time. Hudgens said this would eliminate the creation of multiple embryos that are then frozen. Hudgens said he wants to prevent disputes between ex-husbands and ex-wives over what to do with left-over frozen embryos.

Tipton said that could more than double the cost of these fertility treatments, now about $12,000. Freezing embryos, Tipton said, allows women to try to get pregnant a second time if the first treatment fails, without having to start the process of extracting and fertilizing eggs all over again.

A second bill, Senate Bill 204, also scheduled to be heard by the Senate Health and Human Services committee today. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), would create a legal mechanism for people to adopt embryos.