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“The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos created and stored for in vitro fertilization (IVF) are children under a state law allowing parents to sue for wrongful death of their minor children. The ruling revived three families' lawsuits accusing a Mobile, Alabama fertility clinic, Center for Reproductive Medicine, and the hospital where it is located, Mobile Infirmary, of failing to properly safeguard frozen embryos, resulting in their destruction.” Reuters
“Lawmakers began scrambling for ways to protect Alabama in vitro fertilization services after multiple providers paused treatment… ‘Alabamians strongly believe in protecting the rights of the unborn, but the result of the State Supreme Court ruling denies many couples the opportunity to conceive, which is a direct contradiction,’ House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said.” AP News
Some have argued that the decision should be linked to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the right to abortion conferred by Roe v. Wade. SCOTUSblog
The right argues that the decision will not end IVF in Alabama.
“State and federal laws and court decisions recognizing human embryos and human fetuses as persons for some legal purposes preceded Dobbs, and courts did not strike them down as inconsistent with Roe… The Supreme Court never read Roe to protect IVF from regulation or restriction (and never made other rulings to offer such protection)…
“The federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act has for two decades recognized that federal crimes against women in which an unborn child is injured — no matter what that child’s stage of development — have two victims. Louisiana, decades before Dobbs, outlawed the intentional destruction, sale, or use for research of IVF embryos and declared them to be ‘juridical persons.’ (IVF is still practiced in Louisiana.)… The court did not need Dobbs to issue its ruling.”
Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review
“Mike Pence has a long political record on behalf of the prolife cause, and in his recent memoir he revealed that his wife underwent IVF. ‘Karen and I struggled for more than five years with unexplained infertility,’ he told CBS. ‘I fully support fertility treatments and I think they deserve the protection of the law.’ That’s a rebuttal to partisans who claim Republicans are on a secret mission to ban IVF…
“Donald Trump waded in on Truth Social. ‘Like the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Americans,’ he said, ‘I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.’ The same goes for leaders in Alabama. ‘The Legislature will soon consider a solution that preserves our Alabama values by empowering IVF clinics to continue assisting couples in bringing new life into the world,’ said House Republican Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter. Gov. Kay Ivey is on board…
“With Roe gone, the people reign supreme on abortion policy, and that will be true on in-vitro fertilization.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“What Haley, and all Republicans, should have said from the beginning is that this decision in no way threatens to end IVF in Alabama. The plaintiffs in this case are the parents of IVF children. They support IVF treatment. What they don’t support is the grossly negligent handling of embryos, which is what their lawsuit claims the fertility clinic is guilty of.”
Conn Carroll, Washington Examiner
Some argue, “While it’s hard to deny the technological wonder that allows parents to conceive biological children, with tens of thousands of babies born every year in the United States using various assisted reproductive technologies, IVF does come with a hidden cost: The vast majority of embryos are never used, and millions have been and will be intentionally destroyed. It’s one thing to fertilize an egg and implant that zygote, with nature still playing some part in the timeline of creation. But it’s another to fertilize multiple eggs with the understanding that very few will get the chance even to roll the dice.”
Ian Haworth, Washington Examiner
The left criticizes the decision, arguing that it is part of a broader movement to restrict reproductive rights.
The left criticizes the decision, arguing that it is part of a broader movement to restrict reproductive rights.
“[Alabama] Chief Justice Tom Parker’s concurring opinion employs quotations and teachings from Scripture as if they had the legal force of the Bill of Rights… All are marshaled in support of the view that ‘God made every person in his image… and human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.’…
“But apart from the wrath of God, there is no attempt to rationalize the legal equation of a frozen, formless collection of cells with a living person… The critical question for the state is not whether an embryo of any particular age can be said to be, in some sense, alive; it’s whether it is a human being deserving of the rights and protections accorded to all of us, which is a far broader and more complicated designation.”
Harry Litman, Los Angeles Times
“Over the past week, we’ve seen [Republicans] tripping all over their own faces trying to discuss the decision… Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he was ‘all for’ the ruling, then said the pause on IVF treatments in Alabama was ‘really hard’ and that we ‘need more kids.’ Then he diverted to ‘I’d have to look at the entire bill, how it’s written’ (what bill?) and finally landed on: ‘This is a state issue.’ Yeah, no kidding!…
“[Sen. Tim Scott] dodged the issue with a simple ‘Well, I haven’t studied the issue,’ despite the fact that he, like Tuberville, co-sponsored Rand Paul’s 2021 ‘personhood bill,’ which would have likely banned IVF. Republicans in the House also had a hard time responding to the matter thanks to their own ‘Life at Conception Act,’ which has 124 co-sponsors and no carve-out for IVF.”
Jim Newell and Molly Olmstead, Slate
“IVF doctors recommend creating multiple embryos in the lab, which inevitably means that, whatever the outcome of any given attempt to have a child, one or more embryos could be left. Some are used to try for another child, some are donated to medical research, some are saved indefinitely, and some are discarded…
“The Alabama ruling has made IVF practitioners fear that any mistake handling, implanting or storing embryos could make them, in the eyes of the law, as legally exposed as a reckless driver who hits a child…
“Even if Alabama corrects its Supreme Court’s error, the fact that it happened at all is a sobering moment for anyone who thought the post-Roe push to roll back reproductive freedom had ended, or would be narrowly focused. A stubborn minority is intent on curbing rights and freedoms that a majority of Americans, across the ideological spectrum, have come to rely on…
“State lawmakers in Louisiana, Missouri and Texas have — unsuccessfully so far — tried to curb birth control methods such as the ‘Plan B’ emergency pill taken after sex and intrauterine devices (IUDs)… Aside from Alabama, at least 10 other states already have laws or policies that broadly define personhood as beginning at fertilization.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
