According to CBS News, Alabama’s Supreme Court has declared that frozen embryos are considered children under state law and are subject to regulations regarding the tragic death of minors.
This comes after in vitro fertilization (IVF) victims filed a lawsuit alleging that their frozen embryos were destroyed in December 2020 after a patient placed them on the ground.
The plaintiffs filed two complaints against the Center for Reproductive Medicine, saying that it violated Alabama’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor” Act, which applies to unborn children, as well as carelessness.
They also claimed compensatory damages, but the negligence claims were only valid if Alabama courts or the US Supreme Court concluded that frozen embryos were not children.
The trial court dismissed the claims on the defendant’s motion, finding that a frozen embryo does not meet the “definition of a ‘person’ or ‘child.'”
The court also found that plaintiffs may not seek compensatory damages for loss of human life or emotional distress, citing Alabama legal standards.
In its judgment, the Alabama Supreme Court did not address the topic of whether “extrauterine children” should be considered as human beings, but it did rule that state law did not specify which state an unborn child should be in.
“The relevant statutory text is clear: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies on its face to all unborn children, without limitation,” the court’s ruling said.
The court ruled there is no unwritten exemption to the law that applies to “unborn children who are not physically located ‘in utero’ — that is, — at the time they are killed.”
