Reading about embryos and personhood
The Alabama Supreme Court made a splash recently when they decided that a wrongful death lawsuit against an IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinic could proceed because frozen embryos stored outside of the womb count as "children" under the Alabama wrongful death statute.
A bunch of frozen embryos stored by the clinic were destroyed in an unusual manner. A patient at the clinic wandered into a storage area without authorization, picked up a container of frozen embryos, immediately discovered it was EXTREMELY COLD, and so dropped it. The parents of the now-destroyed embryos sued for monetary damages under a variety of arguments, including the state's wrongful death statute.
The trial court said the parents could only move forward on breach of contract claims, but the Alabama Supreme Court decided that the frozen embryos qualified as children under the wrongful death statute. Mainly because, according to the majority opinion, the dictionary meaning of the word "child" includes a reference to "an unborn or recently born person". They mentioned other arguments, but this was the main argument they led with and concluded with. Dictionary says!
I'd question whether a frozen embryo stored in a container is actually "an unborn person", but the majority opinion entertained no such question. Some of the dissenting opinions wondered whether a wrongful death statute passed in 1872 could possibly have intended to apply to frozen embryos.
But this is what lawyers do, we argue over the meanings of words and the intentions of dead legislators.
Now IVF clinics in Alabama are worried that this ruling will mean they can be sued for the routine destruction of unused embryos, because IVF procedures usually produce more embryos than needed in case some of them don't turn out to be viable. IVF contracts usually specify that unused embryos will be donated for research purposes and then destroyed. Will parents now ignore those contracts and sue for damages when their unused embryos are destroyed?
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IVF is a miracle for many parents (including same-sex couples), having brought about 8 million babies into the world during the past 50 years. Currently 2% of births in the US result from IVF.
Personally, I'm against humans having so many children and adding to our overpopulation problem ... so I'm not going to feel too sad if IVF becomes tied up in legal problems in some states ... but the states that will try to get rid of IVF are also the states trying to get rid of abortion, so I disagree with this very modern notion that unborn children should be treated the same as "children" from the moment of conception.
But I also find it ironic that these families who tried to benefit from IVF in Alabama could have ended IVF for everybody in the state because they wanted to sue for damages when some idiot wandered into a room and knocked over their frozen embryos. Why couldn't they and the clinic have worked out some other remedy? "Sorry that person dropped your embryos, how about we refund the fees and let you try again for free?"
A bunch of frozen embryos stored by the clinic were destroyed in an unusual manner. A patient at the clinic wandered into a storage area without authorization, picked up a container of frozen embryos, immediately discovered it was EXTREMELY COLD, and so dropped it. The parents of the now-destroyed embryos sued for monetary damages under a variety of arguments, including the state's wrongful death statute.
The trial court said the parents could only move forward on breach of contract claims, but the Alabama Supreme Court decided that the frozen embryos qualified as children under the wrongful death statute. Mainly because, according to the majority opinion, the dictionary meaning of the word "child" includes a reference to "an unborn or recently born person". They mentioned other arguments, but this was the main argument they led with and concluded with. Dictionary says!
I'd question whether a frozen embryo stored in a container is actually "an unborn person", but the majority opinion entertained no such question. Some of the dissenting opinions wondered whether a wrongful death statute passed in 1872 could possibly have intended to apply to frozen embryos.
But this is what lawyers do, we argue over the meanings of words and the intentions of dead legislators.
Now IVF clinics in Alabama are worried that this ruling will mean they can be sued for the routine destruction of unused embryos, because IVF procedures usually produce more embryos than needed in case some of them don't turn out to be viable. IVF contracts usually specify that unused embryos will be donated for research purposes and then destroyed. Will parents now ignore those contracts and sue for damages when their unused embryos are destroyed?
-----
IVF is a miracle for many parents (including same-sex couples), having brought about 8 million babies into the world during the past 50 years. Currently 2% of births in the US result from IVF.
Personally, I'm against humans having so many children and adding to our overpopulation problem ... so I'm not going to feel too sad if IVF becomes tied up in legal problems in some states ... but the states that will try to get rid of IVF are also the states trying to get rid of abortion, so I disagree with this very modern notion that unborn children should be treated the same as "children" from the moment of conception.
But I also find it ironic that these families who tried to benefit from IVF in Alabama could have ended IVF for everybody in the state because they wanted to sue for damages when some idiot wandered into a room and knocked over their frozen embryos. Why couldn't they and the clinic have worked out some other remedy? "Sorry that person dropped your embryos, how about we refund the fees and let you try again for free?"