In a theology-heavy ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court will allow a couple to sue for the “wrongful death” of their frozen embryos obtained through IVF.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are children, which pro-choice rights groups have warned could have dangerous implications for fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization.
The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday reversed Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parrish Phillips’ decision to dismiss a lawsuit in which a couple sued an Alabama fertility clinic and hospital for the “wrongful death” of their frozen embryos in a ruling that was riddled with theology. The couple’s frozen embryos were destroyed after a hospital patient who accessed the freezer that held the embryos dropped them on the floor. The ruling means that the couple can sue for wrongful death.
“[T]he Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation,” the ruling said. “It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy. That is especially true where, as here, the People of this State have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding ‘unborn life’ from legal protection.”
The ruling pointed to the Alabama Constitution Section 36.06, which argues that each person was made in God’s image, meaning each life has an incalculable value that “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
Um so what happens if a couple pursuing IVF runs out of money, and now cannot afford to have the embryo implanted? Do the children get put in her womb for free rather than “kill” them? What if she dies? Does some other woman have to incubate them now? What if the first embryo takes? Does she need to still foster the remaining 5 embryos? This is so stupid.
There should be legal consequences for destroying someone’s embryos. They’re very expensive and come at a huge emotional and physical toll for the mother, as well as a lot of time.
IVF often results in multiple fertilized eggs that can develop. It’s part of the process that the best will be selected and the rest discarded. Now with this ruling, patients will have to choose: either pay a huge sum to try egg by egg, or to do multiple at the same time and carry to term all that was fertilized.
The people making these types of laws would probably have the embryo destroyed and have the family either fined or imprisoned because they certainly don’t actually care about children, just that families have them.
It is meant to get rid of IVF.