Frozen embryos are "children" in Alabama

Or at least that's what the State Supreme Court says.

I haven't read the opinion yet. I thought I'd post my questions here first then try to answer them after reading the case.

1. What was the context?

2. Where did this opinion come from given that neither common law nor (as far as I know) the Alabama constitution says anything of the sort?

3. What will be the effect on things like property rights and inheritance?

 

Okay, I read the majority opinion. That was not easy; one has to accept such strange sounding terms as "cryogenic nursery" and "extra-uterine child". There is also a wholly nonsensical citation to the infamous Dobbs decision. Anyway, I have some answers:

1. The context is whether causing or allowing the death of a frozen embryo is compensable under Alabama's Wrongful Death Act. This is important because it's a civil action and not criminal one. The Court goes to considerable lengths to say that it need not, and does not, reach the issue of potential criminal lability for homicide. Likewise, the Court avoids any analysis of 14th Amendment Equal Protection (which in an Alabama court is the height of irony). The Court considers the effect of the Wrongful Death Act and nothing else but the handwriting is on the wall...they will go there eventually I think.

2. The "cryogenic nursery" failed to secure its doors. Someone got in and accidently dropped a...well, they didn't CALL it a "cryogenic bassinette", but you get the idea. The "parents" sued for the death of their "extra-uterine child".

3. The very limited and tightly circumscribed opinion has no immediate effect on any other part of Alabama law so far as I can tell.

So the Court tried to escape the ultimate insanity of a religiously based opinion? Nooo...not exactly. The "parents" have a civil cause of action for breach of contract that the Court might easily have relied upon to dismiss the Wrongful Death Act claim. There are some rules about whether tort liability even exists in a breach of contract action. Had they done so, they could have avoided the whole messy stew but they didn't take that way out.

Given, then, that the Alabama Supreme Court considers that "personhood" begins at conception and that the embryo therefore has rights, why did they not adopt a broader principal covering things like criminal law and equal protection?

My theory is that the Court knew that its opinion interpreting a state statute alone wouldn't trigger review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The broader approach certainly would.

 

So, a frozen embryo is a person? Fine. But tell that kid to get a haircut and a job already!

 

The news seems concerned that IVF might become unavailable in Alabama due to the increased legal liability of such activity this ruling causes?

 

That's the general idea, I think, fetal personhood. I won't parade the horrible things that might result but it's always a dicey thing to change an ancient common law principle because it conflicts with your religion.

 

IVF in Alabama is over.

 

So to sum up, the GOP war is with people who don't want to conceive and give birth to a child, as well as with those who do want that. In other words, all women. Also, with people who want to vote. And with Taylor Swift (the "Great War", this one).

My only hope here is that this ur-fascist party will finally pay the electoral price for these shenanigans.

 

So women in Alabama that want a baby can't have a baby if they need IVF. Women in Alabama that don't want a baby and are pregnant can't get an abortion. This seems very messed up to me. I think Alabama is in, what is technically referred to as, a shit storm of their own making.

 

Leaving aside the legal chaos fetal personhood would create, in the IVF context you're talking about tens of thousands of "extra-uterine children" who will never be born. Who cannot be born because there is no uterus in which they can grow. And these unfortunates are somehow "children"? It's bizarre. It's crazy.

 

When one tries to push religious ideas into secular situations like the law, the results can sometimes be very bizarre. I think that this is one of those times.

 

For some people, embryos are the only hope of having a child. A person may decide to store an embryo if they hope to become pregnant in the future due to illness or upcoming surgery, among other reasons, etc.
They have very strong bond and feelings toward those as if those are unborn children.
Embryo freezing is a procedure that allows people to store embryos for later use. A person can also freeze eggs, which are not fertilized. An embryo forms after fertilization, and cells start to divide.

 

Lerner, you kind of nailed it in your post. IVF allows people to have children that could not otherwise. People deposit their fertile eggs for possible later use. People invest much emotional capital in their frozen embryos. All of these claims center on the CONTRACTUAL rights of the "parents" against the company and rightly so. But Wrongful Death is founded primarily on the right of deceased to continue living. That's what makes the Alabama decision so legally strange; the Court recognized the rights of the, well, "extra uterine children" to live despite the great likelihood that these embryos won't ever be implanted.

Frankly it's a bit creepy to my ears as well as legally wacko.

 

When you enshrine unscientific principles into law, you get chaos.

 

If Psychology or Behavioral Science is a science, then this law may have a scientific backing?
Also, Science with new technologies and discoveries can lead to new and possibly different findings.
It was scientific to apply electric shock treatments, at one point, fry a person's brain.
An argument can be made, that laws not always need to be scientific, they are using science as a tool at times, and politics prevails.
On Man made climate change, we can have opposing arguments, both using science.

 

IVF poses another problem in Alabama. Sometimes multiple "extra uterine children" are implanted. At some point the pregnancy has to be "reduced". That's abortion, folks.

 

The law does not concern itself with "Psychology or Behavioral Science" except as evidence. From time immemorial, the common law said exactly what Jewish law says and the Bible itself seems to say. Life as a legally extant "person" begins with a live birth. That does not mean legislatures cannot restrict the practice of abortion; they are limiting the actions of live people and there need not be any idea of fetal personhood to do this.

 

A bi-partisan group of Alabama legislators is panicking and trying to work out some way to protect the IVF industry. They will probably fail since any such legislation would mean defining "extra uterine children" as not being persons or at least not enjoying the legal protections "persons" otherwise enjoy. This would enrage the Unholy Alliance between MAGA and the fundamentalist churches that dominates State politics. Even if the Legislature managed to pass such a bill, the Governor would probably veto it.

 

Okay, Alabama. You just created about a million frozen citizens who have civil rights. What are you going to do now?

 

I read somewhere years ago that the only region of the 48 states with a genuine unique culture is the Deep South. I'm not so sure of that; here in New Mexico things are radically different than in the Seattle area I came from. I take the point however. I couldn't imagine New Jersey or Oregon deciding that frozen embryos have rights.