XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, or.politics, talk.politics.misc
XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.atheism

Soon they'll be ruling that the earth is flat and that God is white.


Critics slam Alabama court ruling that frozen embryos are 'children'

AFP Feb 20, 2024 Updated 11 mins ago


"Alabama's Supreme Court ruling is a terrifying development for the 1 in 6 people impacted by infertility who need in-vitro fertilization to build
their families," Resolve said in a statement.

"This new legal framework may make it impossible to offer services like
#IVF, a standard medical treatment for infertility," Resolve said.

The Alabama high court's ruling stems from a lawsuit filed against a
fertility clinic under the state's 1872 Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

The suit was filed by three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed by
a patient who "managed to wander into" a cryogenic nursery where they were stored and accidentally dropped several of them on the floor.

A lower court ruled the embryos could not be defined as a "person" or
"child" and dismissed the wrongful-death claim.

But the Alabama Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling Friday, disagreed, saying
"the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies on its face to all unborn
children, without limitation."

"It applies to all children, born and unborn," Justice Jay Mitchell wrote
in an opinion sprinkled with quotes from the Bible.

"The People of Alabama have declared the public policy of this State to be
that unborn human life is sacred," Mitchell said in a reference to the
state's near-total ban of abortion.

"We believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made
in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness," Mitchell
said.

"It is as if the people of Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet
Jeremiah and applied it to every unborn person in this state: 'Before I
formed you in the womb I knew you, Before you were born I sanctified
you,'" he wrote.
- 'Great concern' -

Dana Sussman, deputy executive director of Pregnancy Justice, described
the Alabama ruling as a "natural extension of the march toward fetal personhood."

"This is a cause of great concern for anyone that cares about people's reproductive rights and abortion care," Sussman said.

Alabama is one of some two dozen states that banned or restricted abortion access following the US Supreme Court's 2022 ruling overturning the constitutional right to the procedure enshrined in Roe v Wade.

Jean-Pierre said the Alabama ruling was "exactly the type of chaos that we expected when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and paved the way
for politicians to dictate some of the most personal decisions families
can make."

The Medical Association of the State of Alabama warned in a brief to the
court of the "potential detrimental impact on IVF treatment in Alabama" of
a ruling that frozen embryos outside the womb were children.

"The increased exposure to wrongful death liability as advocated by the Appellants would –- at best –- substantially increase the costs associated
with IVF," it said.

"More ominously, the increased risk of legal exposure might result in
Alabama's fertility clinics shutting down and fertility specialists moving
to other states to practice fertility medicine."

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)