6 ms·
Frozen embryos are 'children,' Alabama Supreme Court rules
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 3y agoThere goes the IVF industry and any cryopreservation services in Alabama (you could be held criminally liable for embryo loss now if considered a person, too much risk as a provider of either reproductive assistance services or cryopreservation).
- toomuchtodo 3y agoCitation: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/21/embryos-children-uab-alabama-00142508 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/21/embryos-children-ua...
- gcanyon 3y agoNo problem! Alabama has a safe haven drop-off law, so just leave the embryos at any fire station -- in an appropriately chilled cooler, obviously.
- hindsightbias 3y agoEvery sperm is sacred. This might be a good biz opp, emergency cyro vat formevery fire station.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoLet the heathen spill theirs on the dusty ground.
- jaybrendansmith 3y agoThis is a Monty Python song from 1968, aimed at the Catholic church.
- schmookeeg 3y agoAnd depressingly still relevant 56 years later.
- esotericimpl 3y ago[dead]
- qgin 3y agoHow literal is this meant to be? Could someone request social security numbers for frozen embryos?
- readthenotes1 3y agoTo continue, if a fetus Auto aborts after the woman has eaten some ice cream and got infected with listeria can she be arrested for involuntary manslaughter? Since birth control pills work in part by ensuring that an embryo cannot latch on to the uterus wall, can a woman taking birth control be arrested on suspicion of murder? We haven't really grappled legally or morally with what is it mean to be a human person, and I guess we are going to have to
- calamari4065 3y agoGiven the not-so-thinly veiled intent of these laws, I'm sure we'll be seeing these cases pop up quite soon.
- bediger4000 3y agoBanning IUDs and The Pill has been an explicit goal of the Pro-life people since at least the mid 1980s. Round about 1985, I got a flier about this under my windshield wipers in St Louis.
- sidewndr46 3y agoSocial Security and TIN are Federal things so it is irrelevant.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- roughly 3y agoCouple child tax credit claims oughta clear all that right up.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
- treyd 3y agohttps://archive.is/jbYdw https://archive.is/jbYdw
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoWithout becoming embroiled in the politics, isn't this question entirely subjective and exactly why states have the ability to make these calls?
- rootusrootus 3y agoGiven how important personhood is at the federal level, this seems like something we might want broad agreement on.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- readthenotes1 3y agoProbably the easiest way to get that broad agreement is to have the long discussion play out in various States. We are nowhere close now
- DannyBee 3y agoUnder which enumerated federal power do you believe this falls? Health and general welfare are explicitly reserved for the states
- sixothree 3y agoPreamble?
- mrkeen 3y ago> entirely subjective and exactly why states have the ability to make these calls That's a good argument for having each person make that call.
- chasil 3y agoIf embryos are people, then there is a social duty to allow all of them to exist to the best of our ability. Taken to the extreme, this would involve conscription of those to provide the physical birth. That would be a horrific path for us to follow as a culture for a collection of cells that have no nervous tissue, and no capability of sentience. There is a large number of people who believe that life begins at conception. Requiring those people to host discarded embryos would likely change their beliefs with remarkable speed.
- COGlory 3y agoCan you name any principle or right that is actually taken to a logical extreme by society? I can own a gun, but not a nuclear bomb. I have free speech, but I can't make fake 911 calls. I can't have soldiers quartered in my house, but I can be drafted. No rights are taken to their logical extreme. It's a bit of a fallacious argument.
- chasil 3y agoWell, let's consider Imminent Lawless Action and its predecessors. "Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely." That seems extreme to me in preserving freedom of speech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- feistypharit 3y agoWow, so can I claim them as dependents?!
- badgersnake 3y agoIf you freeze them for 35 years can they run for president?
- hindsightbias 3y agoWhat if you could vote for them at 18?
- Auracle 3y agoAs someone that's gone through IVF, I don't feel I really disagree with this ruling as a whole. Sure, they aren't children yet, but wrongful death still fits. For those that don't know, IVF is an arduous (and expensive) process and many couples are lucky to get one good embryo out of it. Luckily, we got more than that. Sooner is better than later as well, as far as the couple's age goes. If our frozen embryos were destroyed due to negligence I'd be pissed as hell - and of course, our wonderful daughter wouldn't be in our lives with another hopefully to be delivered in a couple of months.
- candiddevmike 3y agoIt's better to have this handled as a civil trial with fines IMO. A court can decide the value of these embryos and figure out some kind of restitution. Making this a criminal matter creates all kinds of weird precedence.
- COGlory 3y agohttps://codes.findlaw.com/al/alabama-constitution-of-1901/al-const-art-i-sect-36-06/ https://codes.findlaw.com/al/alabama-constitution-of-1901/al... >(b) This state further acknowledges, declares, and affirms that it is the public policy of this state to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate. I don't think I agree about precedent - this looks open and shut, in their state constitution. Ruling any other way seems like it would create new precedent (selectively ignoring the constitution).
- ajross 3y agoMost IVF embryos fail ("die" in this framing). What's the bright line between good faith health care and "you killed my baby"? "Death" is pervasive in this world. If you really believe in wrongful death here, why enter the treatment to begin with knowing how many are likely to be lost? I just don't see how you square this at all.
- MandieD 3y agoI just love it when courts and legislatures in my home country declare that they would have been ok with seeing me dead because the fetus I dearly wanted implanted itself somewhere that would have killed me had I not gotten prompt, objective medical attention.
- COGlory 3y agoThis simply doesn't apply. If you die, then the fetus dies regardless. It's not wrongful death to have immediate lifesaving medical care, and it's extremely difficult to find a pro-life person that would argue otherwise.
- zamadatix 3y agoThis doesn't apply because Alabama's law banning abortion explicitly excludes said circumstances but it's perfectly feasible (and does occur) for a fetus to be at a stage where it has some non-zero chance of surviving without the mother which opens the debate around whether to allow maximizing safety of the mother or maximizing safety of the fetus. Finding people who would argue the latter is not particularly difficult, more than 1 in 5 of those who support any kind of limitation in abortion (or 13% of the total population) support making abortion illegal in all circumstances: https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion... While it's okay to highlight to others such a view is not the majority opinion of those wishing to limit abortion it's important not to sweep double digit percentages of viewpoints under the rug and proclaim what you feel a certain group ought to think like in its place.
- COGlory 3y agoThat poll needs to be explicit about the definition of abortion to be a useful disambiguation. Most people probably don't even consider treating an ectopic pregnancy an abortion, just like how most people don't consider killing someone in self defense to be murder, juts as an example. I'd imagine that healthy viable fetus is likely implicit in a lot of people's personal definition, even those personally against it.
- roughly 3y agoThis is a weird one - while normally the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on what is or isn't Children would get solidly binned in the "culture war" bucket, this feels more like a weird legal system workaround like the river being granted personhood - the case came from a couple trying to sue a fertility clinic because their embryos were destroyed by some incredibly, incredibly negligent shit on the part of the facility. I'm guessing "Wrongful Death" was the only way the couple could show sufficient harm for standing in the case, and the facility argued it couldn't apply because embryos weren't actually children, so the ruling here is most likely intended to let the couple sue the facility. I'm not even sure I oppose it - for the couple, this may well have been their last chance to have kids, so I imagine the distinction for them between this and, say, a gynecologist's negligence leading to the same result is soft. That said, again, I get why people would maybe read more into this, and precedence is a helluva drug.
- mikeyouse 3y agoRead page 37 of the concurrence for a taste of how Alabama is going to treat this newfound precedent.. https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/343D203A-B13D-463A-8176-C46E3AE4F695/docketentrydocuments/E3D95592-3CBE-4384-AFA6-063D4595AA1D https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-...
- roughly 3y agoJust wanna say I applaud you for slogging through 130 pages of an Alabama Supreme Court ruling. But, yeah, I agree - whatever the actual legal reason and reasoning for this, there are going to be a lot of people rubbing their hands in anticipation at what they can do with this ruling.
- fabian2k 3y agoWhy is there a theological justification in a Supreme Court decision?
- silverquiet 3y ago
- COGlory 3y agoI would encourage anyone about to make a blithe comment about embryos being people to consider how they would feel about criminal charges against someone who murders a pregnant woman. I'd also recommend everyone read this sentence: >]he Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation. It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy. That is especially true where, as here, the People of this State have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding ‘unborn life’ from legal protection.” ...before complaining about unaccountable judiciary.
- zamadatix 3y agoDo you mean feticide? I can't imagine many's feelings on criminal charges for murder of a woman depend on whether or not she was pregnant.
- COGlory 3y agoIn most of the US, that's legally double homicide. The point is for people making snarky comments such as "can the embryo run for president in 35 years?" and "can I claim it on my taxes?" The legal system has different levels of protection all across the US, federally and on a state level, for unborn children/fetuses/however you want to call it. Being granted one legal status does not automatically grant all legal statuses. Pretending otherwise is just willfully ignoring centuries of established legal practices to make a petty point that doesn't actually hold up.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zamadatix 3y agoI guess the question being what's the relation to the example case? I.e. what about the case of the murder of a pregnant woman is supposed to be considered that wouldn't be considered in the primary case, outside that you've added the death of a woman to the situation? I'm not saying I disagree with anything I'm just lost why the example invokes anything new to consider in the context.
- gcanyon 3y agoApparently frozen embryos have a "better than 95% chance of surviving the thawing process" -- or looking at it the other way, they have up to a 5% chance of dying [1] -- before we even consider whether they are successfully implanted. If we accept the premise that they are human beings, would we tolerate any other action parents might electively take that put their child at a 1 in 20 chance of dying? And that doesn't count the fact that eggs/embryos are screened before freezing, and less viable, or just genetically inferior (e.g. if the egg has inherited one of the parents' genetic disorder) eggs are discarding even before freezing. And then there's the chance that an implanted embryo survives to birth. That's apparently about 40% -- and amazingly, worse among non-frozen embryos. So there's a better-than-50:50 chance you're killing a "human being" by engaging in in-vitro fertilization at all. [2] [1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/freezing-embryos [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8489809/
- COGlory 3y agoNo one that believes an embryo is a human being also believes IVF is acceptable. At least, not without major cognitive dissonance. Alabama effectively banned IVF with their recent legislation and constitutional amendments. We're just seeing the inevitable litigation play out.
- kalkr 3y agoNew trolly problem!!! would you rather save a freezer full of 1000 embryo children, or one newborn baby?
- pfdietz 3y agoCool. So if I take custody of a frozen embryo, I could potentially sue for part of the parents' estate? No need to ever defrost or implant it. Free deduction for a dependent. Pile up those frozen embryos and send your taxes to zero! Maybe we can figure out some way to attach copyright to a frozen embryo. The rights will last forever. Would an embryo have to register for the draft (if we had that) when it was "old" enough? Can it collect welfare?
- dogmatism 3y agothought this was going to be some Roy Moore shit, but it's actually a sensible ruling that follows the expected dogshit constitutional amendment incidentally "wandering Mobile patient" is an amusing turn of phrase Also, knowing stories about Mobile Infirmary, this is entirely unsurprising
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]