The Alabma Supreme Court Just Ruled That Embryos Are People

Short synopsis:

Everyone is up in arms over the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos are considered people under Alabama law.

However, embryos were always considered people under Alabama’s law. This ruling just extends personhood to frozen embryos surviving outside of the womb (in a freezer or something.)

If you’re pro-choice, the outrage over Alabama’s legal standards for determining personhood is overdue. Alabama has long held embryos are people.

I take no political stance on this blog, but I found it interesting that this story is making national headlines as if Alabama dramatically changed it’s law, when really it just broadened it to include embryos in frozen form outside of the womb.

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

In vitro fertilization (or “test tube babies”) is a process in which couples can create a child by putting a sperm cell and an egg cell into a lab dish and create a baby. Once the blastocyst (or, for lack of better words “egg-thingy”) develops it can be transferred in to a human body.

People use this mechanism when their sexual plumbing is malfunctioning and cannot achieve this process naturally.

Typically, multiple “candidates” are created in the lab and frozen.

The decision to create multiple embryos is supported by sound medical practice in order to increase the couple’s chances of additional attempts at pregnancy.

Often, couples successfully uses some, but not all, of those frozen embryos to create the family they originally intended.

Now that you’re up to speed on test tube babies, here’s what the case was about:

An Alabama couple, Mr. and Mrs. Aysenne, went to a medical center to get in vitro fertilization. The center stored the embryos in a freezer.

One day, an unwitting and unaffiliated patient stumbled into the lab, opened the freezer, and dropped the embryos when his hands were freeze burned by the sub-zero temperatures of the freezer. The drop killed the embryos.

The parents of the embryo, who they had already named “baby Aysenne,” sued the medical center under Alabama’s wrongful death of a minor act – it’s basically a law that gives parents the rights to get monetary damages if someone kills their kid or minor child. Many states have wrongful death statutes (including CT and MA.)

In the initial legal proceedings, the parents and the medical center both AGREED that embryos were covered under this act. The only point of contention was whether or not frozen embryos outside of the womb were also covered under the act.

And the Alabama Supreme Court, unsurprisingly, said yes, they are.. meaning that Alabama considers frozen embryos people too.

What Does This Mean For Society?

Not much. I don’t know if it even substantially changes anything for Alabama either.

As far as Massachusetts and Connecticut are concerned, both states have been clear that embryos are NOT people, and that doesn’t seem like it’s going to change.

The Real Legal Question

Here’s a weird thing to think about though.

Molly Everette Gibson was born on October 26, 2020 from an embryo that had been frozen for 27 years. (She’s pictured below)

If Molly were born in Alabama would she technically have been considered a person all this time?

Like would her license have to reflect that she’s actually 27 years old?

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