Alabama Rules That Frozen Embryos Are 'Children'
huffpost.com
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are children, which pro-choice rights groups have warned could have dangerous implications for fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization.
The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday reversed Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parrish Phillips’ decision to dismiss a lawsuit in which a couple sued an Alabama fertility clinic and hospital for the “wrongful death” of their frozen embryos in a ruling that was riddled with theology. The couple’s frozen embryos were destroyed after a hospital patient who accessed the freezer that held the embryos dropped them on the floor. The ruling means that the couple can sue for wrongful death.
This should end well. /s
In other news, hundreds of Alabama hospital staff were arrested for keeping children locked in freezing rooms for weeks on end.
Heh wait till they learn there's a non zero percent of embryos that get fertilized but never implant in the womb and get flushed down the toilet every month.
Learn? What's that?
You jest but pro birthers don't want embryos to be sitting in a freezer waiting to be used. They want them in a women's body and to be fertilized asap. If the women doesn't want more kids? Too bad.
How many embryos do you think you can manage to store? According to one site, storage costs are $400-$600 per year. You should be able to claim one exemption for each embryo and wipe out your withholding taxes. Maybe even get some extra state benefits, like qualifying for state aid since your income is so low on a per-child basis.
As many as you are willing to go through the process with. Not sure when you would break even or see a "profit" based on cost though. Each cycle costs ~$4k+ with insurance and ~$10k+ without. And it is my understanding the process isn't "fun" or "easy".
Also, would the "children" ever age out? And when would you start counting for their age if they did/could age out? And if they do age would you get in trouble for not enrolling them in school? Or even if you do would you get in trouble for them never actually attending?
I have so many questions!
They're children, but have no birthday, so they never age!
An exemption of $4,400 per child plus potentially another $1,900 in child tax credit makes it pay off within the first year. And why not just huck 'em in your own freezer and save on those storage costs to boot?
Because you don’t want the children to die in YOUR care. That was an easy question.
Then just scoop a few more out, they can't tell the difference
I feel like a state that tries to regulate embryos are going to heavily control the action of “scooping a few more out”
Just pop a couple states over, you can afford it with all the money you're saving on taxes
This is starting to read like a magic the gathering combo.
—-
Alabama - Legendary Land
At the beginning of your upkeep, create a 0/1 white child creature token and tap it.
Child creature tokens do not untap during your untap phase.
1, tap, sacrifice an untapped child creature token: Exile target creature or planeswalker until Alabama leaves the battlefield.
Yeah they don't talk about this much but a lot of women that donate eggs actually end up infertile, with breast or colon cancer, and/or a host of other severe and painful complications. Egg retrieval is not an easy or risk-free procedure, especially if you have the fertility to conceive on your own. And because of the lack of long-term data, they don't have to inform you about this stuff before you go through with it.
Won't work. Guarantee the courts will rule that embryos are only children in cases where medical personnel can be prosecuted. Aka only when they want.
Turns out logic doesn't apply in cases where the ruling isn't based on logic.
The storage facilities can then claim child tax credits for each embryo, right? Are the embryos currently considered in-prisoned against their will? Welfare and food stamp application for the embryos should be interesting. Can I install a freezer with hundreds of frozen embryos, then use taxpayer money to help pay for my mansion to "shelter" them in? Where is the line drawn? Are menstrual cycles without pregnancy considered murder each month? WTF
Normal people: You can't just declare embryos children!
Alabama SC: I do declare!
Being as I am from the Nordics where religion is generally not too visible in public life, seeing language that is this explicitly religious in legal text is just mind-boggling:
Also, here's a completely random legal factlet for you: the Criminal Code of Finland was originally written into law in 1889 and it still has an "intro" from tsar Alexander III of Russia. It translates to approximately this:
That's the only part left of the original law, the rest has been amended a zillion times and I think the oldest sections in the current text are from the 70's. Why that bit from the tsar is still there is honestly a good question, considering our time under Russian rule isn't exactly fondly remembered (although wasn't nearly as bad as what they got in the Baltics for example).
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God (and Alabama) gets quite irate.
Do these hospitals and labs have to apply for a daycare license?
And are lab technicians, nurses, doctors, and scientists now forced to endure babysitter minimum wages as a result of this ruling?
Obvious sarcasm. Alabama is such an embarrassment to the free world.
We are being ruled by braindead morons...
Huh? Alabama is so fucking screwed up they refuse to "kill" a frozen embryo because it's made in god's image. Still, they will not hesitate to execute a felon with the death penalty even though he is living and breathing already in god's image. Can someone explain this to me slowly? I'm old.
Alabama is looking to police and control people, the text they’re deriving the idea from is irrelevant aside from being invocable and authoritative. Read The Handmaid’s Tale to see a glorious breakdown of the methodology.
Nobody actually believes this bullshit. Anyone who was forced to choose between saving a toddler and a canister containing 1000 human embryos, would choose the toddler.
That's how you know their argument is false. Literally no one would waver between saving an actual baby and an embryo. Even if it was a billion embryos (not sure how that would happen), the baby would be saved first. Even if it was your embryo, you would save a random baby first (unless you're a sociopath).
People are just hardwired to care about babies, not cells. That's why the "pro-life" pamphlets and signs have actual babies on them. People care about born children more.
What if that baby was Hitler? Checkmate, atheists!
Can I choose neither?
If embryos are children is every period a murder?
I don't believe every egg released during every menstrual cycle is fertilized.
That's a Zygote and not an Embryo
You think any of these cousinfuckers in Alabama know the difference?
"A zygote? Is that like a billygote?"
Ovum + spermatocyte = zygote. Zygote is a type of embryo that is single celled but can only exist through fertilization. Ova are released prior to periods and are unfertilized. It's possible a period happens after fertilization with failed implantation.
absolutely correct. I was so focused on spelling it correctly that i completely forgot it's the completely wrong thing
I guess this is what they mean, when they say reality beats fiction.
This level of insanity is astounding.
They say USA is as religious as Iran. I guess they could be right.
Claiming late bronze age ignorant superstitious writings as the basis for decisions on laws today is insane by any standard, except the standard of religious insanity.
Cool so we can claim these frozen embryos on our taxes right? We can get state benefits that are allotted to children for these embryos as well?
And then things got worse.
Wait till a freezer breaks down
Alabama can barely read...
Children are more and more expensive. They have to be frozen now?
In other news - dumb southern states doing dumb southern things.
Frustrating that the article doesn't link to the actual ruling
Unless I missed it. In which case, I need new glasses
Where is the mention of God?
“This state acknowledges, declares, and affirms that it is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.”
https://codes.findlaw.com/al/alabama-constitution-of-1901/al-const-art-i-sect-36-06/
The constitution doesn't say it in 36.06, although their preamble does mention God and being made in his image.
Unless their constitution was recently updated and I can't find the new title xt.
The Court interpreted it with all that being local language though.
Ah okay, I saw that the court mentioned god with respect to 36.06 and looked it up. It’s a good point that I didn’t read the entire thing.
Thanks for context
I didn't read the entire thing either, who wants to be reading the whole Alabama state constitution on a Monday night right?
Not me, that's for sure.