The Alabama Supreme Court considers embryos preserved by freezing to be “children.”
This court decision, rendered Friday, was widely criticized.
It could have “devastating consequences” for in vitro fertilization procedures in this southern US state, deplores Resolve, the main American association dedicated to infertility.
At the origin of the decision, a complaint from three couples against a clinic practicing in vitro fertilization.
Citing an 1872 law on wrongful deaths of minors, they filed suit after another patient, entering a storage facility, accidentally destroyed their embryos.
The Alabama Supreme Court made a ruling in a wrongful death case that embryos in a fertility clinic could be defined as a child.
This has threatened access to #IVF in Alabama.
Help keep IVF legal.
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— resolveorg (@resolveorg) February 20, 2024
A court initially dismissed the complaint, finding that the embryos could not be qualified as a “person” or “child”.
But on Friday, with a majority of 7 judges to 2, all Republicans, the Alabama Supreme Court, on the contrary, ruled that the law on infant deaths “applies to all unborn children, without limit”.
“This applies to all children, born or unborn,” writes Judge Jay Mitchell in the text of the decision, peppered with biblical references.
“The people of Alabama have declared that it is the policy of this state that unborn human life is sacred,” he wrote in reference to the state's abortion ban.
“We believe that every human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God,” he further notes in his court decision.
“Devastating consequences” for women
“This new legal framework could make practices like in vitro fertilization impossible,” denounced the NGO Resolve.
The Alabama State Medical Association warned that such a decision “could lead to the closure of fertility clinics and the movement of specialists to other states to practice” their activity. without fear of legal trouble.
Friday's ruling reflects "exactly the kind of chaos that was expected when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.
Wade”, the 1973 ruling establishing the right to abortion, also declared White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.
“Across the country, women are suffering the devastating consequences of the actions of Republican elected officials,” she further denounced.
In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court ended the constitutional guarantee of the right to abortion, leading many states, including Alabama, to restrict or ban them.
The defense of the right to abortion has since become a hobby horse for Democrats, ahead of the presidential election in November.