The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen human embryos constitute children under state statute, a decision that could have wide-reaching effects on in vitro fertilization and other medical concerns there.
The nine-judge court said in the 8-1 ruling that the state's "Wrongful Death of a Minor Act" is "sweeping and unqualified," and that its provisions extend to children "regardless of their location."
"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."
The court said that assessment was "especially true where, as here, the People of [Alabama] have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding 'unborn life' from legal protection."
Alabama voters in 2018 approved a state constitutional amendment affirming "the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children," while in 2019 the state enacted a near-total ban on abortions, one that went fully into effect with the repeal of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The state high court's ruling came following a lawsuit brought by several parents whose frozen embryos had been accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic. The plaintiffs had argued that the destruction fell under the state's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
In the decision the justices cited, in part, the Bible, including passages from Genesis affirming the sanctity of human life, as well as commentary from Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin.
The justices in their ruling said the phrase "minor child" means "the same thing in the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act as it does in everyday parlance: 'an unborn or recently born' individual member of the human species, from fertilization until the age of majority."
"Nothing about the Act narrows that definition to unborn children who are physically 'in utero'," the justices said. "Instead, the Act provides a cause of action for the death of any 'minor child,' without exception or limitation."
