I recently testified in the Senate committee hearing on HB1572. I was honored to be there with my daughter, Elisha, whom my husband and I adopted as a two-cell embryo who had been frozen for four years before being implanted into my womb at six cells.

As the executive director of Embryo Adoption Services of Cedar Park in Issaquah, Wash., I work with fertility specialists every day, and I have concerns about the testimony from Dr. Stephanie Dahl and Dr. Steffen Christensen, fertility doctors from Fargo, in opposition to HB1572.

Dahl's testimony was disingenuous at best, and spoke in language that was confusing and misleading, actually implying that a doctor could be held legally responsible for the resolution of an ectopic or molar pregnancy, which can never result in a living child. To imply they would be held accountable for ending the life of an embryo that cannot live is absolutely ludicrous.

The truth is, at this point, the fertility specialists are not overly regulated by the federal government or state agencies, generally speaking. The real alarm on the part of fertility specialists is not really the "health of the mother" issues, but the possible government regulation of creation, freezing and disposing of embryos.

We need to be concerned as a society about how we view and treat the most primal, precious and promising hopes for our future generations. The casual treatment of sex selection of embryos, designer embryos, "Octomom" situations, perhaps needs the boundaries of legislative oversight.

HB1572 is a bill that simply states North Dakota believes embryos are human beings. Perhaps when we come to a decision of when life begins, we can from that premise rebuild our societal expectations, beliefs and values. HB1572 only states that you believe, as citizens of North Dakota, an unborn child and even an embryo is a person deserving of respect. It is not regulatory, as I understand it, but would be the beginning foundation of rightly relating ourselves in respect for human life.