Texas
IVF treatment can continue under Texas’ current abortion law, experts say
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Abortion bans throughout the nation have thrown into query the destiny of in vitro fertilization, an costly medical course of that helps individuals grow to be pregnant.
However consultants and anti-abortion teams say Texas’ legal guidelines shouldn’t apply to IVF therapy, and clinics throughout the state are continuing with the procedures for now.
Just like different “set off legal guidelines” enacted to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, a Texas legislation handed final yr broadens the definition of an “unborn little one” to start at “fertilization” and embrace “embryonic” levels.
That sort of language can increase questions in regards to the “personhood” and rights of embryos in IVF and different fertility remedies, mentioned Dr. Natalie Crawford, who’s co-founder of Fora Fertility in Austin.
In IVF, Crawford mentioned, medical doctors use hormone injections to avoid wasting extra of a girl’s eggs throughout a menstrual cycle and take them out to fertilize them with sperm in a lab. The eggs are then allowed to develop right into a blastocyst, or an implantation-stage embryo.
Crawford mentioned this enables medical doctors to pick out the embryo they imagine has the “highest probability of success” for a being pregnant to place again inside the lady’s uterus and save the opposite embryos so sufferers can strive once more or develop their household sooner or later. Docs also can use these embryos to check for genetic illnesses.
As soon as an individual or couple now not want the embryos, they determine whether or not to discard them as medical waste, donate them for scientific analysis or to donate them to a different couple, she mentioned. It’s this step specifically that’s posing a query for IVF remedies within the face of abortion bans.
“The factor that we’re essentially the most unsure about is, ‘may it affect discarding embryos, like when any person is completed with their household and so they have remaining embryos?’” Crawford mentioned. “Or if they’ve genetically irregular embryos, may it probably make it more durable to discard these?”
Some additionally fear about medical doctors’ potential to conduct genetic testing.
Proper now, Crawford and different fertility medical doctors in Texas and different states are persevering with IVF remedies as a result of most legal guidelines towards abortions concentrate on embryos throughout pregnancies, not outdoors of the womb.
“Whereas they comprise phrases like ‘each stage of human growth,’ or ‘from the second of conception,’ which makes us nervous, they’re written in a statute that’s clearly about terminating a longtime being pregnant,” mentioned Sean Tipton, chief coverage and advocacy officer for the American Society for Reproductive Drugs.
The American Society for Reproductive Drugs broke down “set off legal guidelines” throughout the nation, primarily based on its legal professionals’ evaluation, and says Texas’ set off legislation “doesn’t seem like relevant to IVF and reproductive medication companies previous to implantation of embryos.”
The ASRM discovered that comparable legal guidelines in 11 different states most definitely exempt IVF and assisted reproductive know-how from abortion bans, however its legal professionals warned Utah’s legal guidelines “may very well be interpreted to have an effect” on assisted reproductive know-how below a provision towards the “intentional killing or tried killing of a stay unborn little one by means of a medical process.”
The statute principally focuses on pregnancies, however the time period “stay unborn little one” is left undefined and will enable individuals to “argue that discarding an embryo or donating an embryo for analysis use is an intentional or tried killing of a stay unborn little one,” based on ASRM’s evaluation.
In Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma, lawyer generals’ workplaces have clarified anti-abortion legal guidelines mustn’t have implications for IVF, however Idaho’s lawyer common mentioned it will be as much as native prosecutors to determine the best way to implement the state’s set off legislation, based on NBC Information. Texas Legal professional Normal Ken Paxton’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark from The Texas Tribune.
Tipton mentioned ASRM and its members additionally fear courts could interpret these legal guidelines in a different way and about potential adjustments as state Legislatures reconvene.
“We will not converse to what state legislators are perhaps gonna do within the subsequent six months or a yr and a half,” he mentioned.
Texas’ set off legislation is anticipated to enter impact 30 days after the Supreme Courtroom points a proper judgment overturning Roe v. Wade, following its late June opinion towards the landmark 1973 choice that had established constitutional protections for abortion.
State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, a Republican from Southlake who first launched the laws, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Within the meantime, the Texas Supreme Courtroom has mentioned the state’s 1925 anti-abortion statutes, which have been challenged in Roe v. Wade, can return into impact as a result of they have been by no means repealed by the state Legislature. These statutes have been written earlier than the primary IVF child was born in 1978, however additionally they concentrate on pregnant ladies and outlawing acts wherein an embryo is “destroyed within the lady’s womb.”
Two of Texas’ most well-known anti-abortion teams — Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Proper to Life — additionally say the state’s legal guidelines and newer definition of abortion mustn’t have an effect on or inhibit IVF therapy, even when they embrace the time period embryo.
“Abortion is, based on Texas legislation, inflicting the dying of the kid, who’s a baby of a girl recognized to be pregnant,” John Seago, president of Texas Proper to Life, mentioned pointing to a statute the Legislature amended a number of years in the past outlining what counts as an abortion.
“There’s additionally no such factor as an abortion outdoors of a girl’s womb, so whenever you take a look at what’s occurring within the laboratory with assisted reproductive know-how, that isn’t destruction of an embryo,” he added.
This language possible leaves IVF therapy intact, authorized students informed the Tribune. A district lawyer may determine to attempt to check the difficulty by bringing a case towards a fertility physician, mentioned Josh Blackman, a constitutional legislation professor at South Texas Faculty of Legislation Houston. However he added that difficult IVF doesn’t seem like an space “ripe” for motion within the anti-abortion motion.
Seago mentioned Texas Proper to Life has issues in regards to the “destruction” of “extreme” embryos, notably in medical analysis, however the challenge shouldn’t be one among its priorities for Texas’ 2023 legislative session. As an alternative, its priorities embrace implementing current legal guidelines towards abortion and offering extra assist for pregnant ladies.
Amy O’Donnell, a spokesperson for the Texas Alliance for Life, mentioned the group had not finalized its legislative priorities but, however mentioned the group supported a legislation handed in 2017 requiring the Texas Division of Household and Protecting Companies to submit info on its web site about embryo donations to different individuals to advertise the choice.
A invoice filed in 2019 aimed to ban state companies from contracting with distributors affiliated with “damaging embryonic stem cell analysis,” human cloning and abortions, however the laws didn’t achieve traction.
In Louisiana, embryos are saved as a result of the state outlaws the destruction of embryos until they “fail to develop additional” over a 36-hour interval, Tipton mentioned.
Crawford, the co-founder of Fora Fertility in Austin, mentioned most individuals preserve their embryos for a number of years, and in some instances as much as 20 years, however they could determine to discard them after reaching their desired household measurement or after a divorce or dying of a companion. And whereas donating embryos to different sufferers will be an possibility, some individuals will not be snug with that, she mentioned.
“That may be a private choice for many of us,” she mentioned. “An embryo doesn’t exist as an individual with out a uterus to be implanted in, and that’s what biology tells us on a regular basis as a result of many embryos don’t implant and don’t go on to grow to be individuals.”
For now, Crawford mentioned she is advising her sufferers to not rush to switch their IVF therapy to different states with out abortion bans as a result of “transporting embryos shouldn’t be with out danger of itself.” As an alternative, she says sufferers ought to “sit tight” and watchfully wait.
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Texas
City Councilmen address Texas Ethics Commission findings
WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) – After five months of looking into complaints made against Wichita Falls City Council members in January, the Texas Ethics Commission has resolved the issue.
Tim Short, Tom Taylor, Jeff Browning, and Mike Battaglino all have agreed to pay a $500 Civil Penalty.
Cathy Dodson, who ran for the City Council District 3 seat in last year’s general election filed the complaints to the T.E.C.
“A non-profit cannot be involved in politics, the Wichita Falls Firefighter Association couldn’t list it that would be illegal,” Cathy Dodson said.
She told crews back in January that she had sufficient evidence to prove the four men took money from the Wichita Falls Firefighter Association PAC.
After notifying the council of their finding, they released a statement:
“The PAC provided written notice of this in-kind contribution on April 21, 2024. All four of us have now corrected our reports to disclose the in-kind contributions. Our joint settlement also states that the parties neither admit or deny the findings of the fact and conclusions of law described. We have paid the small civil penalty and made the bookkeeping adjustments. As a group, we look to move forward for the betterment of the city of Wichita Falls,” City Council Members said.
The city also added, at least six other complaints to the Ethics Commission regarding the same issues were dismissed.
Copyright 2024 KAUZ. All rights reserved.
Texas
Fort Worth's Sky Elements Will Be Droning North Texas with Fourth of July Celebrations
Last month, the Fort Worth-based drone light show company Sky Elements put their dazzling nighttime sky skills on national TV with an appearance on “America’s Got Talent,” earning a “golden buzzer” from Simon Cowell himself.
The 400-foot-tall, 300-foot wide display in the skies outside the the show’s studio featured a rocket liftoff and an image of Cowell in the sky as a waving, space-walking astronaut, capped by the AGT logo.
“It was really patriotic,” Cowell told the Sky Elements team after the demonstration. “And I think the way you told the story, the use of music, whether you’re 3 years old, whether you’re 100 years old, I think you’re absolutely going to love that audition.”
You can watch that AGT clip here for a cool, behind-the-scenes look at how the team’s drone show takes off.
See for yourself this coming week
Or you can watch Sky Elements in action yourself all over North Texas in the next week:
Tomorrow, Saturday June 29 at Toyota Stadium, Sky Elements will give a performance during FC Dallas’ 7:30 p.m. game against FC Cincinnati.
On Wednesday July 3, Sky Elements will perform Fourth of July shows in two local cities. The first will be the Denton Independence Day celebration at Quakertown Park, with “flight times” at 9:15 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The second will be held Wednesday during day 1 of a 2-day Sparks & Stripes celebration in Irving, with a drone and fireworks show at 9:20 p.m. at Levy Event Plaza over Lake Carolyn.
First drone light show to get FAA fireworks approval
In May, Sky Elements announced that it had become “the first U.S.-based drone light show company to receive FAA approval to attach fireworks to drones.”
The company had been working on obtaining the waiver for 26 months before the FAA finally granted its approval. The FAA green light allows Sky Elements to legally attach and launch fireworks from drones during their shows, creating what they call “pyro drone shows.”
It’s not the first time Sky Elements has made history. On Fourth of July 2023, the company snagged a Guinness World Records title for the largest aerial formation of words created by drones (by using 1,002 drones). Then last December, the company broke two more Guiness World Records with a 1,499-drone show in North Richland Hills.
And when Major League Cricket held its historic opening night last July in Grand Prairie, Sky Elements was there to mark the occasion with a drone light show.
Not just all over North Texas—all over the U.S., too
The DFW shows coming next week are just a glimmer of the stunning amount of events Sky Elements is booked for across the U.S. You can check out the company’s master list of performances by going here—including a patriotically astounding amount of shows it’s doing around this year’s July 4th.
Get on the list.
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Texas
Massive dust plume from Sahara Desert to bring hazy skies to Florida, Texas
HOUSTON — A massive plume of dust from Africa’s Saharan Desert is blowing across the entire Atlantic Ocean this week, set to reach the shores of Florida and Texas in the coming days and casting a haze over typically blue skies.
The plume is currently forecast to skirt South Florida late Friday night into early Saturday morning, then push into the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend.
Eventually, the plume is forecast to move into Southeast Texas Sunday into Monday, with Corpus Christi and perhaps Houston likely to see some of the effects.
Coastal communities along the Florida Peninsula and the Gulf Coast are accustomed to seeing plumes of Saharan dust over the summer, which can impact air quality, produce colorful sunrises and sunsets, and reduce the chances of precipitation.
182 million tons of dust a year carried away from Africa
As daily triple-digit heat bakes the Saharan Desert, hot, dry air rises from the surface and carries fine particles of dust from the sands. That dust-laden air climbs to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, where winds called the Easterlies or Trade Winds (blowing from east to west) carry that dust about 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean into the Western Hemisphere in what’s known as the Saharan Air Layer (SAL).
5 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE SAHARAN DUST PLUME
According to NASA, about 182 million tons of dust leave Africa every year, though that amount can vary depending on the amount of rainfall south of the Sahara region.
Depending on the amount of dust being carried by the plume, air quality can be drastically affected. This means that people who have certain types of breathing problems can experience difficulty. People in the path of the plume can also experience eye, nose and throat irritation because of the fine dust particles in the air, according to WebMD.
The dry air from the hot, sandy desert also works to suppress tropical development and significant plumes of dust and dry air are common in the Atlantic during the first two and a half months of the hurricane season.
However, the current situation is a bit unusual in that there is quite a bit of tropical activity percolating in the Atlantic even with a significant dust layer.
Invest 95L and another tropical disturbance just to its east are holding positions just south of the dust layer, and are feeding off available moisture to their south to skirt the edges of the dust layer as they trek west.
However, the dust layer may become an important variable in the storms’ future development depending on their track.
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