IVF Battle
Photo by Tim Mossholder
Everywhere we turn, it seems that the religious right keeps rearing its ugly head and pushing their agenda on the rest of society. It does not seem to matter that the majority of the United States believes otherwise. God’s will drive their actions. Do not fear for the heathen scum who stand in their way. Since we are not God’s children, we have no worth or opinion.
Alabama’s Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos used for in vitro fertilization procedures are actually living people. Shortly after three facilities in Alabama halted services and some began directing people out of state for further treatment. Because the embryos are considered children then people can be held legally responsible under a state wrongful death statute for destroying those embryos.
Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Tom Parker, wrote the majority decision. What he said sent chills down my spine because of the words that he used to defend the court’s position. Parker wrote that Alabama had chosen a “theological based view of the sanctity of life…life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.” He went on to write, “Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”
So much for the separation of church and state. In 2024 I feel so despondent that this could happen. What happened to judging cases based on the state and federal Constitutions? When did justices especially one’s that sit on Supreme Courts start making decisions based on the Bible? What happens next? When we start making these types of decisions you have to ask yourselves where will we stop? Because there is no limit to what can be declared illegal in the eyes of God. What I find so humorous is that when these decisions are made there is no talk about what type of recourse families have in the wake of these decisions. Who will pay for these embryos in perpetuity? Who will pay for the extra space that will be needed to store them? Jane and Joe Public. That is who.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth a Democrat from Illinois introduced a federal bill to protect IVF but it was blocked by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith a Republican from surprise, Mississippi. No surprise there. And I am sure Mississippi has no answers for people either. Just find a way to pay and when you die, your children can keep on paying to risk going to prison for manslaughter.
As we speak four lawsuits have been brought against one Alabama IVF clinic over a 2020 incident in which a hospital patient at the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center walked into a room where the frozen embryos were stored. They removed a container of embryos and dropped them on the floor. So now the wrongful death lawsuits are coming. Three of the lawsuits were combined and before the state Supreme Court after a lower court ruled against the wrongful death lawsuits made against the fertility clinic.
Do these couples really blame the clinic for the horrible actions of a madman or are they just chasing dollars?
There is some hope. Alabama lawmakers are trying to pass legislation to protect fertilization clinics and their providers from legal liability. This will address the destruction or damage to embryos at clinics. But still in play is the State Supreme Court ruling. The Mobile Infirmary Medical Center said in a statement that the new legislation falls short on providing legal protection for the clinic to resume care.
I will finish with a quote from Karen Kraschel, an assistant professor at Northeastern University School of Law. She says, “The law does not nullify the Supreme Court’s analysis that the law ought to treat embryos just like people…There is a lot of ambiguity in the language of the Republican bills that if I was advising a clinic, would give me great pause before resuming treatment.”
So, the Religious Right has won again. For Today. But the tide will turn and humanity and common sense will always win in the end.
