The Florida legislature decided to suspend the bill to protect unborn child
The Alabama Supreme Court ruling on frozen embryos has brought a pause in abortion debate to a critical note: Do we owe a child to the Supreme Court?
On both sides of the abortion debate, there is a correlation between the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on frozen embryos and the pause in the debate.
If it moves ahead, the bill would add Florida to the ranks of about a dozen other states that allow parents to receive financial damages in some instances when a fetus has died. The bill states that the parents of an unborn child can be survivors of wrongful death and take their case to civil court.
The bill has been warned that it gives full rights to a fetus. Such a designation, they said, would imperil doctors and anyone who assisted women in obtaining an abortion and would also adversely affect fertility treatments.
The sponsor of the bill said there is still work that needs to be done, and that he has worked diligently to respond to questions. “It is important we get the policy right with an issue of this significance.”
I never imagined I would be grateful to the Alabama Supreme Court. With its decision deeming frozen embryos to be children under state law, that all-Republican court has done the impossible. It has awakened the American public, finally, to the peril of the theocratic future toward which the country has been hurtling.
Though the Florida bill does not mention I.V.F., critics feared that it could affect fertility treatments and make it harder for families to have children.
“It’s fair to assume that I.V.F. was a problem for this bill from the jump,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor and historian at the University of California, Davis, who used to teach at Florida State University. After the ruling, the degree of backlash and concern increased even more. It turned into a raging fire.
The Post-Dobbs Era: The Daily’s Unresolved News and the Cowardice of Medical Professions
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The decision was a huge shock, leaving fertility centers in Alabama to suspend their in vitro fertilization practices for days, crushing the dreams of couples whose embryos were days away from being transferred. The cowardice of medical professionals is a notable feature of the post-Dobbs era, and you can hear it in the Monday episode of The Daily.
