[Godiva4me]

Here is an update on SB169 From Resolve.org:
UPDATE! The Special Subcommittee formed last week to provide time to study SB 169 met this morning at 9:30 a.m. for 30 minutes. A new version of SB 169 was introduced. The new version was voted on by the full HHS Committee at 10:30 a.m. this morning and the bill passed by a vote of 7-6. The revised SB 169 bill will now go to the Rules Committee where further changes may be made, then to the full Senate for a vote, perhaps as early as Wednesday. The revised SB 169 bill has not been posted online but RESOLVE will post a link to the revised bill as soon as possible.
Our voice must be heard in this debate! At this time we do not have access to the most current versions of these bills. Therefore, we are asking Georgia residents who care about open access to the world-class and ethical care that you have been accustomed to, to tell your Senators that enough is enough.
We want an open hearing, we want our voices heard, and we want to stop all attempts to limit our access to care in Georgia.
We oppose SB 169 and SB 204!
Georgia Residents Only:
Send a letter, email or fax immediately, please click here.
We would also like you to call the members of the Health and Human Services Committee and your Senator. Please remember to be courteous and respectful to all elected officials and their staff. Their numbers are listed below.

Tell them: "I oppose SB 169 and SB 204!"
To find your Senator, click here.

Committee Members:
Senator Don Thomas, 404.656.6436
Senator Renee Vinterman, 404.463.1368
Senator Greg Goggans, 404.463.5263
Senator David Adelman, 404.463.1376
Senator Don Balfour, 404.656.0095
Senator Gloria Butler, 404.656.0075
Senator Johnny Grant, 404.656.0082
Senator Lee Hawkins, 404.656.6578
Senator Steve Henson, 404.656.0085
Senator Judson Hill, 404.656.0150
Senator Lester Jackson, 404.463.5261
Senator Nan Orrock, 404.463.8054
Senator David Shafer, 404.656.0048
Senator Preston Smith, 404.656.0034
Senator Horacena Tate, 404.463.8053
Senator John Wiles, 404.657.0406
Click here to read RESOLVE's Policy Statement on Personhood legislation.
We wish to thank all of you that sent letters, faxes, emails, made phone calls, and attended the hearing on March 5. Your voices were heard and you made a difference! In one day 16 Committee members received more than 20,000 faxes, emails and letters. We hear they are running low on paper in the Georgia Senate. Let’s do it again and make certain the Georgia Senate opposes this legislation!


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FYI: I have received several responses back from senators from my emails. Ed Tarver opposes this legislation and agrees with US! He said he will veto when it gets to the floor.

[LGB]

I keep sending my emails through the RESOLVE website whenever they have a new "letter" up there to send.

I can't believe it's gotten this far...

[Godiva4me]

LGB,
It makes me nervous how far this has gone. I just resent letters to all senators off of the resolve home page letter they had on there tonight. Then, I called all 16 HHS committee members office phones and left messages. In fact Sen. Orrick's mailbox was full. All we can do is our part in voicing our opposition and notifying others. Since you live in Atl., let me know if you hear anything before Resolve posts anything.

Have a good night,
Stephanie

[LGB]

Here is an update I just received, in which RESOLVE brings up several great points to consider:

Senate Bill 169 is now predominantly a piece of "personhood" legislation -- the name for legislation that confers human rights on microscopic embryos from the moment the egg fertilizes. By equating embryos to born human beings, SB 169 has implications that pose a serious threat to infertility treatment. If microscopic fertilized eggs/embryos are full human children, anything that puts an embryo at risk could be a violation of law, even if its goal is the undeniable social good of helping someone have a baby.
This law could impair or prevent doctors from practicing IVF in accord with the best standards of medical care, because they may be deemed to pose too great a risk to embryos.
Doctors would face loss of their license if they fail to treat embryos correctly; we wonder if doctors would even want to practice in Georgia under this law.
Cryopreservation (embryo freezing) would change drastically, because all frozen embryos would have to be used to attempt more pregnancies. That would be the ONLY option.
SB 169 takes from parents the rights of disposition over their embryos. If there is a dispute over embryos, SB 169 establishes a judicial standard that any decision must be “in the best interest of the human in vitro embryo” (Section 19-7-65). The embryo’s interests outweigh the parents’.
If the lawmakers are serious about re-defining embryos as human beings, then women with uterine problems could be forbidden from attempting pregnancy with IVF because of the risks to the embryo of failed implantation.
The net effect is that SB 169 would prevent couples in Georgia with infertility from being able to have families.
We at RESOLVE believe Georgia lawmakers are pursuing goals that have little to do with infertility patients’ best interests. SB 169 adopts the “personhood” strategy to confer human rights on embryos even if it results in a huge cost to infertility patients. This legislation is anti-family for us and must be defeated.

[Godiva4me]

LGB and other interested readers, I received this response from one of the emails I sent out. Spread the word to email/call the Lt. Governor and Governor! We must not let this bill get passed!

Dear concerned citizen,

My name is Daniel Schiff and I am Sen. Adelman's Legislative Aide.

Thank you very much for contacting the Senator on this extremely
important issue and for sharing your viewpoints and touching personal
stories. The issues touched by SB 169 are emotionally laden and
difficult, and this came through clearly in the correspondence.

We have received thousands of e-mails pertaining to SB 169 and therefore
we are unfortunately unable to respond individually to each one.
However, we wanted to update you on the status of this legislation.

On Thursday, March 5th, the Senate Health & Human Services Committee
voted 12-3 to send the original version of the bill to a subcommittee
for further study. The subcommittee met Monday, March 9th to consider
substitute legislation. The subcommittee voted 2-1 (with Senator Adelman
as the dissenting vote) to send the substitute bill to the entire
committee for consideration.

The new SB 169 departs from the original in several ways. First, the
substitute bill removes the restrictions on compensation for the
donation of gametes, meaning that sperm and egg donors can be
compensated. Second, the sections limiting the number of embryos that
can be transferred at any one time have been stricken. Third, the bill
states that cryopreservation for the sole purpose of initiating
pregnancy in the future is permissible. However, while the new
legislation seemingly made several concessions to supporters of in-vitro
fertilization, many of whom have come to the committee hearings in
opposition to this bill, the legislation defines an embryo as a human
being, with all rights therein bestowed, and would still be devastating
to the practice of IVF with our current technology.

Georgia clinics are known as leaders in cutting edge and ethical
treatments for the disease of infertility. Georgia is the home of many
firsts in infertility-related medicine, and the measures established by
SB 169 would open the door to many controversies regarding legal
responsibility, criminal charges and personal rights for both
infertility patients and doctors. Furthermore, the legislation still
limits the creation of embryos for research, severely impeding stem cell
research, though other lines from out-of-state can still be used for
in-state research.

Senator Adelman spoke in both the subcommittee and committee meetings,
emphasizing the concerns of interested citizens as well as the voices of
the medical, biotechnology and university communities. First and
foremost, Senator Adelman believes that this very complex and
emotionally-fraught issue should be very carefully evaluated before any
legislation is passed to ensure that all consequences-intended and
unintended-are taken into consideration. The rapid progression of this
legislation means that a comprehensive review has not been conducted by
the Georgia Senate. Senator Adelman further believes that the passage
of SB 169 would send the message that Georgia is an anti-science state
and have negative implications for the scientific community, for the
economy of the state and for all the people who could benefit from
embryonic stem cell research.

Because of these beliefs, Sen. Adelman proposed sending the bill to a
subcommittee for further study, and his measure failed by a vote of 6-6.
Afterwards, the committee voted to approve the substitute bill 7-6, and
it will now be considered by the Senate Rules Committee. If it passes
through the Rules Committee, which Sen. Adelman sits on, it will be
voted on by the full Senate. We expect it to be heard by the Rules
Committee tomorrow, March 11, and if it passes, it will be heard and
voted on by the full Senate on Thursday, March 12, which is the final
day legislation can pass the Senate and cross over to the House of
Representatives for the 2009 session.

We encourage your continued involvement. Please feel free to contact
your legislators in both chambers of the General Assembly, as well as
other legislators and officials. You can find the e-mails, phone and fax
numbers of your representatives at
http://www.capitolconnect.com/oklahoma/default.aspx. Contact Lt. Gov
Casey Cagle, President Pro Tempore Tommie Williams, Speaker of the House
Glenn Richardson and other members of the Senate and House leadership -
their contact info is at
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/senate/leadership.htm. Let the
State legislators understand how important this issue is by calling,
faxing letters, and e-mailing. Additionally, you can contact the office
of the Governor, Sonny Purdue, at (404)-656-1776.

Finally, you can follow the progress of the bill and read it in its
current form at Georgia General Assembly - SB 169.

Again, thank you so much for your correspondence. Sen. Adelman
appreciates your input very much. Hearing from concerned citizens and
constituents helps him to best represent the interests of the people of
Georgia. If you have questions or comments and would like further
discussion, please feel free to e-mail back and we will try to get back
to you individually as soon as possible.


Best wishes,

Daniel Schiff
Legislative Aide, Sen. David Adelman, District 42

[LGB]

I got that one today too, I sent more emails through RESOLVE as they have another updated one there. I've sent so many this past week!

[Godiva4me]

I know what you mean.... one thing for sure, they should know our names by the time all of this infertility legislation gets done. Hopefully it all gets DEFEATED! Glad I have you to commiserate with! Let's keeping up our nagging!

[LGB]

For REAL girl!

[megwalsh6]

I keep sending e-mails too! This sucks! What buisness do they have doing this? UGH

[Godiva4me]

Dear Georgia Resident,
Senate Bill 169 moved to the Georgia House on March 17. Thanks in large part to the overwhelming response from the infertility community in Georgia, it is a much diluted version of the original bill. This proves without a doubt that your voice does make a difference. Together we were part of a tremendous ac complishment. For the first time, we are seeing infertility patients rise up to defend their families and their treatment options; this is the birth of a movement and every one of you is part of this movement.
But we still have more work to do in this legislative session.
While many of the offensive provisions relating to IVF treatment have been removed, SB 169 still contains language that is vague and unclear. One provision remains in the final version of the bill passed by the Senate that is so ambiguous and subject to so many possible interpretations that we at RESOLVE remain concerned.
19-7-61(b) provides:
“The creation of an in vitro human embryo shall be solely for the purposes of initiating a human pregnancy by means of transfer to the uterus of a human female for the treatment of human infertility or cryopreservation for such treatment in the future.”

We at RESOLVE are concerned that the above provision contains so much ambiguous language with unclear aims that the law could be interpreted in ways that would not be in infertility patients’ best interests. It is hard to know exactly how the law could be used in the future. Below are some of the possibilities that concern us:

• Could someone contend that women who have medical conditions like kidney disease that prevent them from carrying a pregnancy, but who are not usually considered to have “infertility”, would be forbidden to have treatment that creates embryos for a gestational carrier to carry? The embryo creation is not strictly speaking “for the treatment of infertility”. We don’t think it would be fair, but we are concerned it could be interpreted this way.
• Could someone contend that cryopreserved embryos, because they are supposed to be used “for [infertility] treatment” MUST be “transfer[red] to the uterus of a human female” at some point? Could someone bring a lawsuit if frozen embryos are not used for infertility treatment after a certain number of years? If the parents do not wish to use the frozen embryos, could a court order that they must be used for someone else’s infertility treatment? If this interpretation is valid, we would object to the state’s interference with our embryo disposition decisions.

For a complete copy of SB 169, click here then open the version marked "As Passed Senate".
RESOLVE urges you to send a letter to the members of the House Committee on Science and Technology which will review SB 169, as well as the House Majority Leader, Speaker Pro Tempore, and Speaker of the House urging them to oppose SB 169. To send a letter right now, click here. For more information about legislation in Georgia, click here.
Thank you again for your incredible outpouring of opposition to SB 169; let’s make sure this bill does not become law in Georgia!
Sincerely yours,
Barbara Collura
Executive Director, RESOLVE