The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama quoted the Bible for a judicial decision recognizing fertilized and frozen embryos as "children." Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma & South Carolina have already been using fetal personhood to put women behind bars. In these same states, health care providers are sharing personal information with law enforcement, sometimes without a warrant or informing the patient.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a ruling critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatments.
The decision was issued in a pair of wrongful death cases brought by three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic. Justices, citing anti-abortion language in the Alabama Constitution, ruled that an 1872 state law allowing parents to sue over the death of a minor child “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”
“Unborn children are ‘children’… without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics,” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in the majority ruling Friday from the all-Republican court.
Mitchell said the court had previously ruled that fetuses killed while a woman is pregnant are covered under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act and nothing excludes “extrauterine children from the Act’s coverage.”
