10mo ago

Alabama Rules That Frozen Embryos Are 'Children'

www.huffpost.com Alabama 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.

This should end well. /s

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In other news, hundreds of Alabama hospital staff were arrested for keeping children locked in freezing rooms for weeks on end.
- You jest but pro birthers don't want embryos to be sitting in a freezer waiting to be used. They want them in a women's body and to be fertilized asap. If the women doesn't want more kids? Too bad.
- Heh wait till they learn there's a non zero percent of embryos that get fertilized but never implant in the womb and get flushed down the toilet every month.
  
  Learn? What's that?

How many embryos do you think you can manage to store? According to one site, storage costs are $400-$600 per year. You should be able to claim one exemption for each embryo and wipe out your withholding taxes. Maybe even get some extra state benefits, like qualifying for state aid since your income is so low on a per-child basis.
- As many as you are willing to go through the process with. Not sure when you would break even or see a "profit" based on cost though. Each cycle costs ~$4k+ with insurance and ~$10k+ without. And it is my understanding the process isn't "fun" or "easy".
  Also, would the "children" ever age out? And when would you start counting for their age if they did/could age out? And if they do age would you get in trouble for not enrolling them in school? Or even if you do would you get in trouble for them never actually attending?
  I have so many questions!
  
  They're children, but have no birthday, so they never age!
  An exemption of $4,400 per child plus potentially another $1,900 in child tax credit makes it pay off within the first year. And why not just huck 'em in your own freezer and save on those storage costs to boot?
  
  Yeah they don't talk about this much but a lot of women that donate eggs actually end up infertile, with breast or colon cancer, and/or a host of other severe and painful complications. Egg retrieval is not an easy or risk-free procedure, especially if you have the fertility to conceive on your own. And because of the lack of long-term data, they don't have to inform you about this stuff before you go through with it.
- Won't work. Guarantee the courts will rule that embryos are only children in cases where medical personnel can be prosecuted. Aka only when they want.
  Turns out logic doesn't apply in cases where the ruling isn't based on logic.

The storage facilities can then claim child tax credits for each embryo, right? Are the embryos currently considered in-prisoned against their will? Welfare and food stamp application for the embryos should be interesting. Can I install a freezer with hundreds of frozen embryos, then use taxpayer money to help pay for my mansion to "shelter" them in? Where is the line drawn? Are menstrual cycles without pregnancy considered murder each month? WTF

Being as I am from the Nordics where religion is generally not too visible in public life, seeing language that is this explicitly religious in legal text is just mind-boggling:
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.”
Also, here's a completely random legal factlet for you: the Criminal Code of Finland was originally written into law in 1889 and it still has an "intro" from tsar Alexander III of Russia. It translates to approximately this:
We Alexander the Third, by the Grace of God, Emperor and Sovereign of the whole Russian Empire, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., etc., etc., do hereby make known: by the subordinate proposal of the State Legislatures of Finland, We hereby graciously establish the following criminal code for the Grand Duchy of Finland, the enforcement of which, as well as the execution of penalties, shall be the subject of a special decree
That's the only part left of the original law, the rest has been amended a zillion times and I think the oldest sections in the current text are from the 70's. Why that bit from the tsar is still there is honestly a good question, considering our time under Russian rule isn't exactly fondly remembered (although wasn't nearly as bad as what they got in the Baltics for example).

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God (and Alabama) gets quite irate.

Do these hospitals and labs have to apply for a daycare license?
And are lab technicians, nurses, doctors, and scientists now forced to endure babysitter minimum wages as a result of this ruling?
Obvious sarcasm. Alabama is such an embarrassment to the free world.

Nobody actually believes this bullshit. Anyone who was forced to choose between saving a toddler and a canister containing 1000 human embryos, would choose the toddler.
- That's how you know their argument is false. Literally no one would waver between saving an actual baby and an embryo. Even if it was a billion embryos (not sure how that would happen), the baby would be saved first. Even if it was your embryo, you would save a random baby first (unless you're a sociopath).
  People are just hardwired to care about babies, not cells. That's why the "pro-life" pamphlets and signs have actual babies on them. People care about born children more.
  
  Even if it was your embryo, you would save a random baby first (unless you’re a sociopath).
  What if that baby was Hitler? Checkmate, atheists!
- Can I choose neither?

If there's no shit to clean up, there's no child.
Interpret that however you will.

We are being ruled by braindead morons...

If embryos are children is every period a murder?
- I don't believe every egg released during every menstrual cycle is fertilized.
  
  Zero eggs stored in a hospital freezer are fertilized, so while periods aren’t dropping embryos, they are still dropping eggs.
- That's a Zygote and not an Embryo
  
  You think any of these cousinfuckers in Alabama know the difference?
  "A zygote? Is that like a billygote?"
  
  Ovum + spermatocyte = zygote. Zygote is a type of embryo that is single celled but can only exist through fertilization. Ova are released prior to periods and are unfertilized. It's possible a period happens after fertilization with failed implantation.

We should rule that wasted sperm is also murder.
- Ovulation too. Every woman must remain pregnant at all times or else she is willingly participating in the death of babies.

I guess this is what they mean, when they say reality beats fiction.
This level of insanity is astounding.
They say USA is as religious as Iran. I guess they could be right.
Claiming late bronze age ignorant superstitious writings as the basis for decisions on laws today is insane by any standard, except the standard of religious insanity.

Cool so we can claim these frozen embryos on our taxes right? We can get state benefits that are allotted to children for these embryos as well?

Wait till a freezer breaks down

And then things got worse.

Alabama can barely read...

Children are more and more expensive. They have to be frozen now?

Well ‘bama better provide some schooling for them ‘children’!
Thousands of teeeny tiny lil seats and books.

In other news - dumb southern states doing dumb southern things.

Frustrating that the article doesn't link to the actual ruling
Unless I missed it. In which case, I need new glasses

Where is the mention of God?
“This state acknowledges, declares, and affirms that it is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.”
https://codes.findlaw.com/al/alabama-constitution-of-1901/al-const-art-i-sect-36-06/
- The constitution doesn't say it in 36.06, although their preamble does mention God and being made in his image.
  Unless their constitution was recently updated and I can't find the new title xt.
  The Court interpreted it with all that being local language though.
  
  Ah okay, I saw that the court mentioned god with respect to 36.06 and looked it up. It’s a good point that I didn’t read the entire thing.
  Thanks for context

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