The Alabama Supreme Court's decision that frozen embryos have the same rights as children has raised a host of questions about how this ruling will affect the future use of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the state.
Fair enough. The court, in its wisdom, has decided that frozen embryos have the right to life, and that anyone who causes their wrongful death can be criminally prosecuted.
This makes the use of IVF in Alabama impossible, particularly if we look at how IVF works:
In vitro fertilization (“IVF”) is a process where human eggs are fertilized outside of the womb, and later implanted in a human uterus. Typically, more eggs are fertilized than will actually be used, and the unused eggs are frozen. Among other things, this allows the unused eggs to be used later if the couple wants to have another child, and it also allows them to be used if the first attempt to implant some of the eggs does not take.
At some point, however, the stored eggs are destroyed or used in medical research. Moreover, according to the Mayo Clinic, “not all embryos will survive the freezing and thawing process.” So the destruction of at least some embryos is a normal part of IVF.
This helps explain why the University of Alabama-Birmingham hospital has suspended IVF treatments until administrators, lawyers, and doctors can figure out whether they – and their patients — would be criminally liable in case of IVF failure.
But the justices' decision raises other issues, too — none of which the honorables addressed, but Washington and Lee Law professor Carliss Chatman raised back when the state passed its sweeping personhood bill.
Among those questions…does a fetus need a name, Social Security number, child support, and so on? These are not abstract questions. They are logical extensions of Alabama's political and judicial actions. Consider the issue of the census:
Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution requires a census every 10 years to count all persons residing within the United States. If a fetus is granted personhood, it should be included in the count. The census currently asks about the age and date of birth of each household resident. Will it now include the date of conception in select states so that fetuses may be counted? There is the potential to unfairly skew census data and disproportionately apportion representatives and resources to those states.
And so on. The state of Alabama may become a test bed for a host of issues surrounding its public policy choices on when life begins and how it now extends outside the womb.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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