Alabama Supreme Court Rules That Frozen Embryos Are 'Children'

In a theology-heavy ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court will allow a couple to sue for the "wrongful death" of their frozen embryos obtained through IVF.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are children, which pro-choice rights groups have warned could have dangerous implications for fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization.

The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday reversed Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parrish Phillips’ decision to dismiss a lawsuit in which a couple sued an Alabama fertility clinic and hospital for the “wrongful death” of their frozen embryos in a ruling that was riddled with theology. The couple’s frozen embryos were destroyed after a hospital patient who accessed the freezer that held the embryos dropped them on the floor. The ruling means that the couple can sue for wrongful death.

“[T]he Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation,” the ruling said. “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.”

The ruling pointed to the Alabama Constitution Section 36.06, which argues that each person was made in God’s image, meaning each life has an incalculable value that “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”

“Section 36.06 recognizes that this is true of unborn human life no less than it is of all other human life ― that even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory,” the ruling stated, referring to the Alabama Constitution’s Section 36.06.