BRUSH PRAIRIE, Wash. — The State of the Union (SOTU) is Thursday night and the guest list includes an Alabama mother whose second round of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) was canceled after the state's Supreme Court ruled that embryos have "personhood."
Virginia senator Tim Kaine announced his guest to the SOTU would be Elizabeth Kaine, the first U.S.-born IVF baby.
Kathy and Patrick Easter from Brush Prairie (formerly from Spokane) also belong to that list of firsts. The Easters were the first to give birth to an IVF baby in Washington state.
Kathy Easter said she had her fallopian tubes removed after an ectopic pregnancy. As a nursing student, she knew IVF was an option she was interested in, even in 1979.
When she married Patrick and they decided to have a baby, Kathy Easter said her gynecologist recommended going to the University of Houston for a double-blind IVF study. There, she realized her medication was not a placebo - and soon she was pregnant with their son Chris. He was born in 1983.
"The IVF procedure has given us something - it's the best thing ever to happen," Kathy Easter said. "It gave us a chance, to enjoy the most precious gift in the world and I wouldn't change it for anything."
Kathy Easter said she's worried about the decision the Alabama Supreme Court made about embryos having the same rights as children. For her, she said an embryo was an embryo in the beginning.
"It was a cluster of cells growing, and until you reach a certain stage, when you see the heart pumping and the features developing, then it becomes a baby to me," Kathy Easter said.
She added that she has questions about frozen embryos, left unfertilized.
"I'm in my 70s now, what would I do with a frozen embryo?" Kathy Easter said. "And what would happen to that embryo if I were to die tomorrow? Who inherits the embryo?" she said.
Ultimately, Kathy Easter said she worries women's rights will continue to be taken away.
"I remember marching back in the 60's, and I remember women's rights," Kathy Easter said. "I remember all those years how much we fought to get equal rights in every area we could, and now they are taking away slowly our reproductive rights. And that is something that-- if I could be out there-- marching again, I would."
IVF providers in Alabama, who have temporarily halted IVF treatments following the state's Supreme Court ruling, resumed some in vitro fertilization services Thursday. Alabama's governor did sign a bill into law that protects patients and providers from the legal liability that potentially comes with declaring embryos' personhood.
However, the new law does not address the direct issue of "personhood," still leaving some providers on pause.