The Alabama court decided that children are not considered to be children when it comes to abortion

The Alabama Judgment Defends Excluded Extrauterine Children from a Child’s Unlawful Death Claim

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – A ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court has given fertilized eggs the same rights as children. The recent ruling has some fertility clinics claiming they will not be able to continue practicing in the state, while couples who need help getting pregnant are left wondering where they will turn for help building a family.

Both wrongful death lawsuits were brought by couples whose frozen semen was destroyed in a fertility clinic. Writing for the court majority, Justice Jay Mitchell said nothing excludes “extrauterine children” from a state law governing the wrongful death of a minor.

Those who’ve been following the Alabama abortion debate should be aware of the reason why prosecutors have arrested pregnant women for taking drugs that could be harmful to a fetus. Alabama does not allow exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

“Unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics,” Mitchell wrote in the decision issued Friday.

The security of the hospital storing the frozen embryo went wrong in this case. A random patient somehow gained access to the cryogenics lab, grabbed the embryos and dropped them, thus destroying them.

The Alabama Supreme Court’s Decision to Declarate Life in the Name of a High-Order God and its Implications for IVF

Alabama’s Chief Justice, Tom Parker, wrote in the decision that destroying life would “incur the wrath of a holy God.” Of nine state Supreme Court Justices, only one disagreed.

The wrongful death lawsuit was brought by couples that were mourning the accidental destruction of the embryos and wanted to hold someone responsible for it. What are the broader-ranging or perhaps unintentionally harmful consequences of Alabama’s IVF clinics?

The Professor of Law at UC Davis talks about the legal implications of IVF.

Chang: What are the effects of this ruling on people who don’t live in Alabama? What do you see?

So in other words, some anti-abortion groups argue that if an embryo was a person, every single embryo created has to be implanted, either in that person who’s pursuing IVF, or some other person who “adopts the embryo.” So as a result of that, it may radically change how IVF works, how cost effective it is, and how effective it is in allowing people to achieve their dream of parenthood.

Ziegler: If Alabama IVF providers feel obligated to create every embryo, that will reduce the chances of a successful IVF cycle. It might make it more expensive. The cost of instrume is already very high. I think the average being between about $15,000 and $20,000 per IVF cycle. After a single cycle, many patients don’t succeed. But if you were not allowed to create more than one embryo per cycle, that’s likely to make IVF even more financially out of reach for people who don’t have insurance coverage, and who struggle to pay that hefty price tag.

The Role of Abortion in Prenatal Health: A Call to Revisit the Law in the State of the Art, or What Happens When You’re Not in a Room with an Attorney General

Biden said in a statement that his administration wouldn’t stop until the protections of abortion were restored in federal law.

One day after Republican presidential hopeful Haley seemed to side with Alabama court’s decision, Vice President Biden said “Embryos, to me, are babies.”

Haley has in the past discussed her struggles with infertility, and told NBC on Wednesday that she conceived her children through artificial insemination, a process that does not involve creating embryos in a lab.

“But you also want to treat those embryos with respect – whoever is holding them – and make sure that there’s a clear indication of what is expected from the parents who provide it, and what’s expected from the provider that holds them,” she confirmed.

The impact on patients’ attempts to have a baby through in-vivo fertilization is sad but we need to consider the potential consequences of following the standard of care, as well as the risk of being criminally prosecuted or faced with hefty fines for following the standard of care.

The court’s ruling and the move by the University of Alabama are horrible signals of what’s to come across the country.

But that puts Haley out of step with many in her party, who have called for a national 15-week abortion ban and championed abortion restrictions at the state level.

Democrats, meanwhile, see abortion as a winning issue. Voter registration data suggests that the overturning of Roe motivated women voters ahead of the 2022 midterms. Over the course of the last decade, the anti- abortion measure has lost on every ballot initiative except in solidly red states.

“What we have seen on this issue is over the course of now, a year and almost a half — people who are suffering every day in our country as a result of this,” Harris said. “[Former President Trump] was clear in his intention to hand pick three Supreme Court justices who would overturn the protections of Roe v. Wade. He did it. And that’s what got us to this point today.”