Are Embryos Children? Alabama Says Yes

A reproductive rights sign held up amongst a crowd of people. Charles Edward Miller from Chicago, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, affirms the idea that embryos created through in vitro fertilization are considered to be children under state law, and controversy has swept the country. This shock reaches far beyond the would-be parents in the state, extending to complex questions of legality beyond Alabama. 

In 2020, a hospital patient removed frozen embryos from the liquid nitrogen they were stored in and dropped them on the floor, and the couples whose embryos were destroyed brought this case to the Alabama Supreme Court suing for damages. One act that they sued under was called the 2014 Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. This act states “when the death of a minor child” by someone’s “wrongful act, omission, or negligence” is such a way that if the victim had survived, they would have had the right to a personal injury lawsuit. 

This law dates back to 1872, over a century before the development of IVF. To fully grasp this time frame, in the same year, Thomas Edison was granted a patent for an electric typewriter.

Laws like Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act should not be setting the precedent for current court cases without modification to fit modern times. It is imperative to view and interpret laws with the understanding that they were enacted before these types of technological advancements. Despite that, the Alabama Supreme Court decided to rule in favor of the appeals under the law, now stating that the embryo is a life, even in a test tube outside the uterus. 

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker wrote in a concurring opinion, “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.” 

Parker’s involvement with a once-fringe Christian Nationalist movement has come under scrutiny once again. His words are a sign of the Ascendance of the Christian Legal Movement, which is closely tied to the Conservative Legal Movement. These movements essentially declare that the U.S. is a Christian nation founded on Christian documents, like the U.S. Constitution, in their view. Parker has also outwardly criticized judges for not adequately considering religion in rulings.

With judges’ religious biases and agendas and rulings about the rights women have over their bodies and reproductive systems being put under fire, the Alabama Supreme Court justices have shown new ways in which the overturning of Roe v. Wade can affect how embryos are classified under state laws. 

This ruling will make it increasingly more difficult for women and couples in Alabama to overcome the consequences of infertility both socially and emotionally. These concerns stretch farther than the state, as this ruling may interest other conservative states to take similar steps. 

In wake of the case in Alabama, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth attempted to pass federal protection fertility treatments, including IVF, through a procedure permitting any senator to halt the process in its tracks. Republican Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith did just that by objecting to the federal protection of these treatments.

Hyde-Smith insisted that Duckworth’s bill proposal is a “vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far, far beyond ensuring legal access to IVF.”

When people in supposedly “unbiased” positions of power push their beliefs and agendas into rulings, it causes harm to others. Eggs in a frozen test tube wielding the same rights as a living child is one of the first steps we see being taken following Roe v. Wade being overturned, doing just that. It’s difficult to predict how far Alabama’s influence will reach, but it has already negatively affected too many.