Blogger Steve Ruis pulls apart the theological ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, holding that frozen embryos are children. The Court invoked religious language to assert that destroying a frozen embryo is murder, and anyone who does that can be sued as if they terminated the life of a child. Frozen embryos are in a freezer, not a womb, but the Justices endow them with the status of a living child.

In Vitro Fertilization clinics across Alabama—and elsewhere—are panicked. Couples use IVF when they can’t conceive; typically, they freeze more than they need because, for whatever reason, some of those embryos fail. One couple I know froze 10 embryos; they now have two beautiful, healthy children. But if the Alabama ruling were commonly endorsed, the other eight frozen embryos could never be destroyed. Long after the parents are dead, long after their grandchildren are dead, the embryos would be preserved. Forever.

Ruis writes:

Just when I thought the SCOTUS was the greatest threat to democracy we faced in our court system, the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama stepped up by deciding that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children.”

According to their Chief Justice, Tom Parker:
“The Alabama constitution’s ‘sanctity of unborn life’ provision, he wrote, ‘encompasses the following: (1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.’”

Apparently the Alabama Supreme Court has not heard of the separation of church and state. And I am surprised that they weren’t singing Monty Python’s song “Every Sperm is Sacred” while issuing their ruling.

This immediately put the brakes on all of the In Vitro Fertilization therapies currently under way. If you are unfamiliar with IVF it is a process where infertile couples can have fertilized embryos implanted in the woman’s uterus. The embryos are frozen awaiting this process and are willingly donated by fertile women.

So, here’s the bind the fertility clinics are in. They cannot go ahead with the IVF treatments because the “success rate is low, that is many embryos do not implant in the uterine wall and are flushed out during a waste cycle. This would be considered a wrongful death under the law and the desperate parents and doctors could all go to jail. So, all of these clinics are to put their frozen embryos on ice, as it were.

But, here is the problem. Those embryos under Alabama law cannot be implanted, so they have to stay frozen . . .in perpetuity. But what happens down there in hurricane country of the electric power is knocked out for a number of days. Without electricity, all of those embryos would thaw and “die.” Would that be considered a mass murder on the part of the clinic or an “act of God,” under their laws.

I know the solution. All of the Bible thumpers need to step up and adopt one of these “extrauterine children,” providing them with an uninterruptable supply of electricity and to take responsibility if they die. Then we will know they are truly “pro life.”

Remaining frozen forever, never to run and play in the park . . . so much for the sanctity of life.