So It Begins
The Alabama Supreme Court has “rocked America's IVF clinics and reproductive sector” with a ruling that recognizes stored human embryos as children.
Three couples who used the services of an Alabama clinic to create embryos are the plaintiffs at the heart of the case. A number of embryos were stored at the clinic until “…in December 2020, a patient at the Hospital managed to wander into the Center's fertility clinic through an unsecured doorway,” according to the case. “The patient then entered the cryogenic nursery and removed several embryos. The subzero temperatures at which the embryos had been stored freeze-burned the patient's hand, causing the patient to drop the embryos on the floor, killing them.” The case had been rejected by lower courts on the ground that the embryos do not qualify for protection, as they had not been transferred into a womb.
However, the state’s Supreme Court took up the matter with the majority opinion arguing that Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act of 1872 covers every unborn human, whether in utero or not. It also reasoned that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was in play, since it “prohibits states from withholding legal protection from people based on immutable features of their birth or ancestry.” To further set sexual revolutionaries’ hair on fire, the opinion gives an extensive definition as to what is meant by the “sanctity of life” with many references to Augustine, Aquinas, the Bible, and God Himself as authorities who know a thing or two about what qualifies as human.
There were some unhinged responses, for sure, with Democrats saying the Handmaid’s Tale nightmare envisaged by conservatives since the overturning of Roe is becoming a “terrifying” reality. Corporate media reported stories of women whose fertility treatments are now in doubt. There was plenty of commentary declaring that this decision is the death knell for IVF in Alabama, but the Court is well aware that its ruling will spark many difficult conversations. The justices wrote of the need for more regulation on the fertility industry, pointing to Australia and New Zealand where the production of embryos is limited to one or two at a time. Questions of what the ruling means in the realms of insurance, government welfare, physician responsibility and the fertility sector would have to be addressed at a later stage, they said.
It’s good that the Court has thrown the issue right into the public square, as it is one of those aspects of a pro-life worldview which is frequently overlooked. The plight of “extrauterine children” is often swept away by the desire to have a child at any cost. The potential harm to women by harvesting eggs is rarely discussed. The ability of the fertility industry to exploit barren couples with overstated promises remains unaddressed. More scrutiny of how we treat the tiniest humans is long overdue.
Yes, this case raises many hard questions that our society just doesn’t want to consider, but we should get our thoughts straight on the matter. Those who defend abortion can no longer do so on the basis that we don’t really know much about embryos, in the way which seemed plausible decades ago. Now the rationale is more brutal: if an adult desires to be a parent, the fetus is a child; if not, it is dispensable. The same seems to be in play here. We are living in an age where people have given tacit assent to the idea that a baby is only a person if he or she is wanted.
The facts that children are a gift from God and 100% human from the moment they are conceived is a much better place to start for building a just society. I am grateful for Chief Justice Tom Parker and his court for having the courage to say so.
I thought I’d include this here too… Comfort for women who have suffered miscarriage from Martin Luther.