Major Alabama hospital pauses IVF after court rules frozen embryos are children

[Social Media]

Alabama Supreme Court Ruling Sparks Debate on Reproductive Medicine

 

A recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, deeming frozen embryos as "children" and potentially holding individuals liable for their accidental destruction, has ignited a contentious debate surrounding reproductive medicine in the United States. The implications of this decision extend beyond legal ramifications, impacting fertility treatments and intersecting with broader discussions on abortion rights.

 

Background:

The lawsuit originated from a wrongful death claim filed by three couples whose embryos were inadvertently lost at a fertility clinic in 2020. The Alabama Supreme Court sided with the couples, asserting that frozen embryos should be considered "children" under the state's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, despite a lower court's ruling to the contrary.

 

Impact on Fertility Treatments:

In response to the ruling, Alabama's largest hospital, the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, has paused its in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) services out of concern for potential criminal prosecution. While the ruling does not explicitly ban IVF, it introduces ambiguity regarding the legality of certain procedures involving embryos.

 

Reproductive Rights and Abortion Debate:

The ruling intersects with the broader landscape of reproductive rights and the ongoing abortion debate in the United States. Democratic-leaning states have moved to expand access to abortion following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade, while Republican-controlled states have enacted more restrictive measures. Alabama, already known for its stringent abortion ban, now faces further scrutiny over its reproductive policies.

 

Political Implications:

The ruling has the potential to shape political discourse, with Democrats likely to emphasize the protection of fertility treatments as a key platform issue. Conversely, Republican politicians, often aligned with anti-abortion sentiments, may view the decision as a victory for the sanctity of life.

 

Future Outlook:

While the ruling currently applies only within Alabama, its implications could resonate nationwide. Other states may consider similar legislation or legal challenges, potentially influencing the broader landscape of reproductive medicine and abortion rights in the United States.

 

In summary, the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on frozen embryos has sparked debates on reproductive medicine, intersecting with broader discussions on abortion rights and shaping political narratives ahead of upcoming elections.

 

23.02.24

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[Berkshire]

4 hours ago, Social Media said:

The Alabama Supreme Court sided with the couples, asserting that frozen embryos should be considered "children" under the state's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, despite a lower court's ruling to the contrary.

This ruling is patently absurd....but not too surprising that it's coming out of Alabama.

[bamnutsak]

Can't be too long before a banjo is considered a person in Alabama.

 

Nikki Haley chimed in "Embryos, to me, are babies".

 

Support for IVF polls at 86%.

 

 

 

[Tug]

A truly backward state next they will be coming for contraception im seeing a blue wave building 👍 keep it up lmao 🤣 

[Eric Loh]

Thank you Alabama for another own goal in an election year. Meanwhile GOP is in a political bind. Republican governors are supporting while House GOP rushes to distance from Alabama IVF ruling. As usual the Rep Party is in disarray again, 

[bamnutsak]

2 minutes ago, Tug said:

A truly backward state next they will be coming for contraception im seeing a blue wave building 👍 keep it up lmao 🤣 

 

Yes. I am surprised that condoms are legal in Alabama. Also surprised erectile dysfunction meds are legal.

[Emdog]

when making test tube babies doctors stimulate women to produce more eggs & maybe a dozen viable zygotes may be produced & perhaps 2 or 3 implanted in the uterus. Those doctors could now be classed as serial killers in Alabama.

[thaicurious]

6 hours ago, Social Media said:

A recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, deeming frozen embryos as "children" ... The implications of this decision extend beyond legal ramifications...

 

Political Implications:

The ruling has the potential to shape political discourse ... Republican politicians ... may view the decision as a victory for the sanctity of life.

 

Oh what a tangled web maga weaves

 

Because if, as its Republican, conservative, Alabama Supreme Court has ruled, In Vitro embryos have, as their Chief Justice Tom Parker put it, "the image of God", assuming he was not referring to a Jesus Popsicle, then heterosexuality is no more special to life than is a petri dish.

 

But but but since the 1970s the GOP and its fundamentalist minions have argued against recognizing LGBT relationships based on procreation. Heterosexuals are so special, they said, that they're the only beings deserving of state recognized relationships because they are required by evolution to produce children.

 

But now their own Supremes tell them that was all a lie. Because frozen embryos, now they say, are children, embryos created without heterosexuality, without any sexuality, in a petri dish. A holy sanctified petri dish brings forth the image of God.

 

Do you petri dish, take these sterilized tweezers to be your lawfully wedded...

[xylophone]

4 hours ago, Berkshire said:

This ruling is patently absurd....but not too surprising that it's coming out of Alabama.

Not so fast my friend, because just this morning I'm sure I saw an embryo, carrying a satchel, trundling off to school past my window – – how absurd can the Republicans get? 

 

This has to be the dumbest of the dumb decisions. God help America.
 

[youreavinalaff]

If they are indeed children and they have been placed in a freezer, why have there not been any child abuse claims made?

 

Maybe, in a years to come, the human lives produced from these embryos will file claims of historical child abuse.

[Eric Loh]

If embryos are children, do we celebrate embryos day and birth day. May go further back and celebrate sperm and egg day. The right wingers have gone cuckoo.

 

[Walker88]

23 minutes ago, Eric Loh said:

If embryos are children, do we celebrate embryos day and birth day. May go further back and celebrate sperm and egg day. The right wingers have gone cuckoo.

 

How long before some enterprising entrepreneur games the system:

 

If the embryos are people, and there's no crime so long as they aren't destroyed, women should make maybe 500 of them...and then apply for welfare and childcare assistance. Bankrupt Alabama.

 

I find it odd---maybe not so odd...that Talibangicals care more about pinhead-size zygotes than 6 year old kids trying to cross the border.

Edited February 23 by Walker88

[thaibeachlovers]

19 hours ago, Berkshire said:

This ruling is patently absurd....but not too surprising that it's coming out of Alabama.

Why? An embryo is a child that has not been carried to the point of birth. Do you consider that life starts only with the first breath?

 

America never fails to boggle me. On one hand it seems that most women want to abort their unborn children while some want to get pregnant at great expense.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

16 hours ago, thaicurious said:

But now their own Supremes tell them that was all a lie. Because frozen embryos, now they say, are children, embryos created without heterosexuality, without any sexuality, in a petri dish. A holy sanctified petri dish brings forth the image of God.

Rubbish. A living egg is fertilised with a living sperm in a petri dish or whatever they use. They are not created in the dish.

[thaicurious]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Rubbish. A living egg is fertilised with a living sperm in a petri dish or whatever they use. They are not created in the dish.

Oh my, lol, easily distracted much? Petri dish wasn't the point. The point is that if an embryo created outside the body is considered by the conservative Republican AL supreme court to be a child, then heterosexuality, the attraction of a opposite sexes, is not required to produce a child, which is entirely what the argument of procreation was based upon in its attack of recognizing non-strictly str8 relationships. Your maga has pulled the rug out from under its own argument.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, thaicurious said:

Oh my, lol, easily distracted much? Petri dish wasn't the point. The point is that if an embryo created outside the body is considered by the conservative Republican AL supreme court to be a child, then heterosexuality, the attraction of a opposite sexes, is not required to produce a child, which is entirely what the argument of procreation was based upon in its attack of recognizing non-strictly str8 relationships. Your maga has pulled the rug out from under its own argument.

LOL. Do you think the egg and the sperm were created by a machine? Of course they were created in an actual human body, of two different genders, and the resulting embryo is an unborn human child.

 

There is more to marriage than just producing a rugrat child, but perhaps you are a one issue type of person.

Personally, I despise the institution of marriage and up to me it'd be sent the way of jousting. People want to live together just do it. The idea of spending thousands of $ just so people we don't even know can get drunk on our booze is ludicrous to me, and that so many non religious people get married in church is just hypocrisy.

Makes zero difference to getting divorced and all those promises they made were just lies.

[thaibeachlovers]

19 hours ago, Walker88 said:

If the embryos are people, and there's no crime so long as they aren't destroyed, women should make maybe 500 of them...and then apply for welfare and childcare assistance. Bankrupt Alabama.

LOL. To do that would likely cost more than all the welfare that the woman would receive in her lifetime. It's not like a chicken where the egg pops out of a woman's body every month.

I doubt any doctor would agree to participate in such a scheme and even if they did, it also requires technical assistance to keep the egg alive. If it's just left in a dish it will die, and to become an embryo it requires a technician to fertilise the egg, or did you think it's just getting a man's sperm and rolling the egg around in it? Then after the egg is fertilised it needs to be frozen or it will die. That requires more advanced equipment than the home freezer.

 

I think Alabama finances are quite safe from your scheme.

Edited February 24 by thaibeachlovers

[Danderman123]

On 2/23/2024 at 1:38 AM, Emdog said:

when making test tube babies doctors stimulate women to produce more eggs & maybe a dozen viable zygotes may be produced & perhaps 2 or 3 implanted in the uterus. Those doctors could now be classed as serial killers in Alabama.

Tell that to Donald Trump.

[youreavinalaff]

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. Do you think the egg and the sperm were created by a machine? Of course they were created in an actual human body, of two different genders, and the resulting embryo is an unborn human child.

 

There is more to marriage than just producing a rugrat child, but perhaps you are a one issue type of person.

Personally, I despise the institution of marriage and up to me it'd be sent the way of jousting. People want to live together just do it. The idea of spending thousands of $ just so people we don't even know can get drunk on our booze is ludicrous to me, and that so many non religious people get married in church is just hypocrisy.

Makes zero difference to getting divorced and all those promises they made were just lies.

You appear to be confusing marriage with ceremony. 

 

My wife and I have been happily married for 24 years. We didn't get married in a church or pay for "people we don't even know can get drunk on our booze"

 

 

[youreavinalaff]

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. To do that would likely cost more than all the welfare that the woman would receive in her lifetime. It's not like a chicken where the egg pops out of a woman's body every month.

I doubt any doctor would agree to participate in such a scheme and even if they did, it also requires technical assistance to keep the egg alive. If it's just left in a dish it will die, and to become an embryo it requires a technician to fertilise the egg, or did you think it's just getting a man's sperm and rolling the egg around in it? Then after the egg is fertilised it needs to be frozen or it will die. That requires more advanced equipment than the home freezer.

 

I think Alabama finances are quite safe from your scheme.

So, nothing like a human child. I can't remember the last time I needed to freeze my daughter in order to save her life.

[thaicurious]

9 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. Do you think the egg and the sperm were created by a machine? Of course they were created in an actual human body, of two different genders, and the resulting embryo is an unborn human child.

 

There is more to marriage than just producing a rugrat child, but perhaps you are a one issue type of person.

Personally, I despise the institution of marriage and up to me it'd be sent the way of jousting. People want to live together just do it. The idea of spending thousands of $ just so people we don't even know can get drunk on our booze is ludicrous to me, and that so many non religious people get married in church is just hypocrisy.

Makes zero difference to getting divorced and all those promises they made were just lies.

You appear to be confusing the reproduction (of sexes) with the sexuality (of attraction).

 

Also you appear to be confusing the components with the process.

The embryos in question are not* as you said or seem to imply "created in an actual human body".

 

*https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/freezing-embryos#:~:text=To create an embryo (a,for five to seven days.

"To create an embryo (a fertilized egg), an embryologist fertilizes one or more of the harvested eggs with the sperm of a partner or donor. The embryo is observed as it grows in a petri dish for five to seven days." (bolding mine)

Edited February 24 by thaicurious

[Berkshire]

On 2/24/2024 at 4:27 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Why? An embryo is a child that has not been carried to the point of birth. Do you consider that life starts only with the first breath?

 

America never fails to boggle me. On one hand it seems that most women want to abort their unborn children while some want to get pregnant at great expense.

 

Wow, you really don't understand the implications.  Why do you think IVF clinics in Alabama are ceasing operations?  So if an embryo is considered legally the same as a child, why have the clinics and parents not been charged with child abuse for freezing said embryos?  If 2 embryos are inserted in a women and only one becomes a baby, does she get charged for murder for the other embryo?  And so on....

 

Republicans and right wingers want to play silly games with words, calling an embryo a child and so forth.  Let's keep it simple:

 

Embryo=Embryo

Fetus=Fetus

Child=Child

 

 

[WorriedNoodle]

Time to queue the Every Sperm Is Sacred video as Alabama has gone absurdly Pythonesque.

[xylophone]

51 minutes ago, WorriedNoodle said:

Time to queue the Every Sperm Is Sacred video as Alabama has gone absurdly Pythonesque.

Would Alabama be a Republican governed state by any chance.........there's your answer. Complete numbnuts and some!

[heybruce]

On 2/23/2024 at 11:42 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. Do you think the egg and the sperm were created by a machine? Of course they were created in an actual human body, of two different genders, and the resulting embryo is an unborn human child.

 

There is more to marriage than just producing a rugrat child, but perhaps you are a one issue type of person.

Personally, I despise the institution of marriage and up to me it'd be sent the way of jousting. People want to live together just do it. The idea of spending thousands of $ just so people we don't even know can get drunk on our booze is ludicrous to me, and that so many non religious people get married in church is just hypocrisy.

Makes zero difference to getting divorced and all those promises they made were just lies.

"...the resulting embryo is an unborn human child."

 

And every acorn is an unborn oak tree.  Does that make squirrels tree killers?

 

Actually the squirrel analogy has some merit.  Squirrels eat many unborn oak trees, but not all of the unborn oaks that they bury.  Many of them become real oak trees, resulting in the oak tree killing squirrels actually creating oak trees that otherwise would not have existed.

 

IVF serves the same function, leading to babies being born to families that very much want them and will take care of them.  Babies that otherwise would have never existed.