Revisiting the 2024 Alabama Supreme Court decision to recognize frozen embryos as children is a landmark case for the country. Considering recent attempts to legislate protection for the IVF industry, it’s important to review all the nuances of the decision, because this issue is going to continue to evolve across the country. Understanding all sides of the issue helps to make better decisions for both unborn children and parents.
First, the decision didn’t make it a crime for an embryo to be destroyed. It ruled on the side of civil law and not criminal law. Therefore, if a frozen embryo were destroyed, even accidentally, then a parent could sue for damages. That is exactly what happened in the case before the Supreme Court. A patient wandered into a medical lab that was housing frozen embryos and dropped a container that possessed the embryos, thereby destroying them. The parents claimed that they could sue because those were their “future” children.
To further explain this, Alabama has a law called the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. Under this law, if you accidentally kill a child, you can be sued for civil damages. Over time, that act was further defined through the Brady Act, in which the word “child” was expanded to include an unborn child, so if you accidentally killed a pregnant woman, you could be civilly liable also for the unborn child.
However, is a frozen embryo an unborn child? The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that it was. The Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies “to all unborn children without limitation. And that includes unborn children who are not located in utero at the time they are killed.”
Also, part of this decision was the foundation to uphold the sanctity of life. Justice Mitchel went through great lengths to show historically where this term, “sanctity of life,” comes from and how it has been used previously in court proceedings.
The People of Alabama have declared the public policy of this State to be that unborn human life is sacred. We believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness (48).
Justice Cook opposed the majority opinion stating that the wrongful death statue was written before the invention of IVF and that its intention was to protect only certain children. This act was later revised by the Brady Act to include unborn children in the womb. The key term here is “in the womb.” A frozen embryo is outside the womb, so technically, it’s not protected by the Brady Act, according to Justice Cook. The majority of justices maintained that the frozen embryo is considered an unborn child, whether it’s in the womb or outside the womb.
Another issue at hand is whether judges should be making judgments that expand the law or just interpret the law. The majority acknowledged that this ruling could raise complicated issues, but they said it’s not their job to rewrite the law to avoid uncomfortable outcomes. Their job is to interpret the law as it stands. If the law now seems too broad or causes unintended problems, the Legislature can change it.
As you can imagine, the IVF industry paused its work in view of this decision. However, the Alabama Legislature stepped in and passed legislation that allowed them to continue their practice of IVF. Once again, the Brady Act, which can bring criminal charges for negligence, is only for children in the womb, not outside the womb.
The justices of Alabama were simply attempting to be logical with their thinking. If the state is going to protect the life of an unborn child, then the embryo is unborn, and therefore it should be protected. The issue of the unborn child’s location is a peripheral issue at best.
Part of the dissenting opinion bases its dissent on the effect that the decision is going to have on the IVF industry. This effect may diminish the capacity to engage in its practice of producing multiple embryos to ensure a successful implantation.
This is a logical fallacy: An argument is not correct or incorrect just because the effect is unwanted.
Let’s apply this to a more visible situation. During the pre–Civil War era, an argument in favor of slavery was made that slavery brought economic prosperity to the states. Statesmen were opposed to freeing the slaves because that would be an economic disaster for the South. In this case, it is easily observed how economic facts take priority over the dignity of the human person, which is an end in himself. Once the human dignity of the African-American is acknowledged, then slavery is revealed as unethical. The loss of economic prosperity could be an unfortunate but necessary consequence of recognizing that dignity. No one today would argue in favor of slavery because of economic advantages.
This is a complicated issue for sure, and the ramifications are serious. The idea of what constitutes a human person is no longer a philosophical or theological question; stances are being taken that directly affect the lives of parents and business due to recent innovations.
The Supreme Court of Alabama is taking a more proactive approach and defining what a person is. The Legislature of Nevada, on the other hand, recently proposed a bill that doesn’t define a person but simply states that an embryo is not a person. Yet saying that an embryo is not a person while not defining what a person is is a logical fallacy.
As courageous and logical as the decision was, its logical consequences were not followed in the least. The Legislature of Alabama immediately placed legislation protecting the IVF industry so as not to create a pause in that business. One of the points that was brought up in the decision is that other countries are handling this situation differently; other countries allow only one embryo to be implanted at a time, and there are no excess embryos and therefore no need for storage. Such a procedure would be more in line with respecting the value of human life in my view.
I note briefly that many other Westernized countries have adopted IVF practices or regulations that allow IVF to continue while drastically reducing the chances of embryos being killed, whether in the creation process, the implantation process, the freezing process, or by willful killing when they become inconvenient. For decades, IVF has been largely unregulated in the United States, with some commentators even comparing it to the Wild West. See, e.g., Alexander N. Hecht, The Wild Wild West: Inadequate Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technology, 1 Hous. J. Health L. & Pol'y 227, 228 (2001), page 43.
What’s clear is that the law is now at a crossroads. Courts are being asked to make decisions that affect not just the people in front of them, but the entire framework of reproductive health care. As society wrestles with these deep questions — about the meaning of personhood, the role of science, and the sanctity of human life — Alabama has become a flashpoint. Whether other states follow this path remains to be seen. But this ruling has already made one thing clear: The question of when life begins isn’t just for scientists or philosophers anymore. It’s a matter of law, and it’s shaping lives in ways we’re only beginning to understand.
George Matwijec, Ph.L. is an adjunct philosophy teacher at Immaculata University who specializes in teaching knowledge and logic He is the author of a book entitled My Interview with AI. He can be reached at iteacher101.com.
Image via Pixabay.