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July 27, 2022
STL
HEALTHWATCH
JEWISH LIGHT
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Healthwatch is a monthly feature focusing on a health- or fitness-related topic with a Jewish angle. The feature is published the second edition of each month. Have a suggestion for a potential Healthwatch subject? Email news@stljewishlight.org.
Groups launched to help Jewish couples with IVF face an uncertain landscape after Roe reversal or Minnesota, where surrogacy and termination laws are more lenient. But then the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending abortion rights in the United States. Suddenly, Ohio prohibited abortion after just six weeks, and the prospect of new restrictions in other nearby states grew more real. So with the support of Hasidah, a nonprofit that gives grants and guidance to Jewish families dealing with infertility, Kristin and Shai decided to seek a surrogate in Canada instead. “It just made the most sense to protect
JACKIE HAJDENBERG JTA
Kristin had been trying to conceive for two years before learning that she had two blood-clotting conditions that increased her risk of miscarriage and could make pregnancy and childbirth dangerous, even fatal. So she and her husband Shai moved to a contingency plan: seeking a surrogate to carry their baby. The Jewish couple assumed they would work with someone near their home state of x Ohio, like Illinois Jlight: 1/2pg, 7.73”W 10.6”H;
the safety of a surrogate who’s doing this wonderful thing, this beautiful gift for us and making sure that her life can be protected above the life of a fetus or a clump of cells that is not even a child yet,” Kristin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. She asked that her last name be withheld for her privacy. The family’s change of plans represents just one of many scenarios that Jewish infertility-support organizations are encountering as Americans adjust to a post-Roe reality. Those organizations are largely aimed at helping to create preg-
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nancies, not end them. But with anxiety high about whether the new legal landscape could pose threats to assisted reproductive technologies, especially in vitro fertilization, the Dobbs ruling is throwing their work, and their clients, into turmoil, too. “If you’re having an infertility experience, the concept of this is scary enough,” said Rabbi Idit Solomon, Hasidah’s CEO and founder. “For them, it’s reality: ‘I am in the process of doing this, what happens if?’” Hasidah is one of several groups that have emerged in recent years to help Jews fulfill the biblical mandate to be fruitful and multiply. Animated by concerns about fertility, Israel will pay for any infertile couple to have two children through IVF, no matter how many rounds it takes; the country is the world’s leader in IVF use. But in the United States, the process can cost on average $20,000 per round, making it financially burdensome for many families. Hasidah, the Jewish Fertility Foundation, Puah America and a handful of other groups defray the costs while providing support during the grueling process. First used successfully in 1978, IVF brings eggs and sperm together in a laboratory to create embryos outside of the womb. The embryos can then be monitored for several days to assess which ones are most likely to result in a successful pregnancy. It is also possible to screen the embryos for genetic diseases so that only healthy embryos are transferred into carriers of those diseases — a boon for Jewish couples from Ashkenazi backgrounds, who are more likely to be carriers of a host of genetic diseases, such as Tay-Sachs, a degenerative condition that leads to death in childhood. In addition to being at higher risk for genetic diseases, non-Orthodox Jews may have a higher-than-average rate of infertility overall, research by the Jewish Fertility Foundation has found. Exactly why is not understood, but one theory is that Jewish couples tend to pursue higher education at higher rates, making them older on average when they start having children. (Orthodox Jews start having children an average of five years earlier than non-Orthodox Jews and typically have more children, according to a Pew study from 2021.) Embryos outside of a womb are not subject to restrictions under any of the state laws limiting abortion that the Dobbs decision greenlighted, according to multiple analyses by news organizations and advocacy groups. But there is worry that they could be in the future as laws are revised and as advocates for the idea that life begins at conception are empowered. A couple of concerns stand out. Since the goal of IVF is to create as many embryos as possible, then transfer the healthiest into the womb, it often results in many more fertilized eggs than can be used. Some opponents of abortion say they want those embryos to be donated, not destroyed. Kristin said she and her husband planned to store their embryos in Canada out of fear that a “nightmare scenario” could arise in the United States where she would lose autonomy over what amounts to their own DNA. Continued on opposite page
