Georgia House Passes HB 388: Nation's First Embryo Adoption Bill

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Contact: Daniel Becker, President, Georgia Right to Life, 770-667-3777

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA, Mar. 12 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Georgia House today passed HB388: The Option of Adoption Act by a vote of 96- 66. This bill allows for embryos that are currently in cryopreservation to have the legal right to adoption as human beings in accordance with the child adoption laws of the State of Georgia.

This bill also ensures that the adoption of human embryos will no longer be carried out as a form of contract or property law. HB 388 helps to clarify the rights of genetic and adoptive parents and promotes the best interest of the child.

Daniel Becker, President of Georgia Right to Life stated, "This bill is monumental in that it establishes the adoption of embryos as children for adoption purposes. You donate property, but you adopt persons. We are excited that we are one step closer to establishing embryo adoption as law in Georgia."

Since the late 1970s with the creation of in vitro fertilization (IVF), 500,000 human embryos have been conceived and stored in laboratories across the United States.

While four states have recognized some form of embryo "donation," none of those states have a statute explicitly authorizing embryo "adoption." If HB 388 passes through the senate and Governor Sonny Perdue signs the bill, Georgia will become the first state to explicitly, by state statute, authorize human embryos for adoption rather than for donation.

Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel of Americans United for Life commented, "This bill is very timely given the need to humanize the embryonic human at a time when at the federal level embryonic stem cell research is being promoted. This bill helps to provide a counterweight and is great news for Georgia."

Georgia Right to Life (www.grtl.org) promotes respect and effective legal protection for all human life from its earliest biological beginning through natural death. GRTL is one of a number of organizations that have adopted Personhood (www.personhood.net) as the most effective pro-life strategy for the 21st century.