When Republicans in Alabama enacted a law earlier this year to protect in vitro fertilization following a court decision that halted the treatment in the deeply conservative state, they pitched it as a temporary fix.
They vowed to revisit the issue before the state Legislature adjourned and promised to work on a bill they said would serve to protect IVF long term in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court had ruled that embryos are children — a decision that created a national uproar.
They never did.
The hard deadline for action this year came and went, as the GOP-controlled Legislature adjourned this week, ahead of its scheduled May 20 date to do so.