Parker’s statement is not surprising. Parker, an ally of then-Chief Justice Roy Moore, famous for the court’s Ten Commandments, denounced: Roe vs. Wade He called this “unconstitutional” and suggested state courts should resist implementing the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.
I quote at length so you know that I am not exaggerating about theocracy. The “sanctity of the unborn” clause in the Alabama Constitution states: “(1) God created all people in His image; (2) Therefore, each person (3) Human life cannot be unjustly destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who considers the destruction of his image an act against himself. It is considered an insult.”
Alabama law states, “This applies to prenatal human life as much as all other human life; that even before birth, every human being bears the image of God.” , recognizing that we cannot destroy their lives without damaging their lives,” he said. glory. “
At one point, he described embryos frozen within days of fertilization, which are probably made up of hundreds of cells, as “little people.”
Wow. Here are some parts of the U.S. Constitution that may be relevant. The law provides that no government, including the government of the state of Alabama, “shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion.” If Parker ever hears about this part of the First Amendment, he never mentions it.
The plaintiffs are three infertile couples who allege that a fertility clinic’s negligence destroyed their embryos and froze them for future use. (A wayward patient somehow wandered through an unlocked door, picked up the container containing the embryos, and dropped it.) The couple filed suit under the state’s Wrongful Death of Minors Act of 1872. However, the Alabama Supreme Court has previously stated that the law “applies to unborn children.” ”
Infertility causes a huge mental, physical, and financial burden. No matter what you think of the moral status of a fetus, it is precious. Therefore, although they are sympathetic plaintiffs, the fertility clinic pointed out that they had a successful surgery to produce a child. The embryo remained. And they had various agreements to destroy the remaining embryos after five years or in other circumstances.
So, is a frozen embryo a fetus?
The trial court said no. The Alabama Supreme Court disagreed, finding that “no court in the nation has taken up the case,” according to a dissenting opinion.
The verdict was crazy from the beginning. “All parties to these cases, like all members of this court, agree that the fetus is a genetically unique human being whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death,” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote. Ta.
Oops, again? “All parties” in this case As you may agree, when life begins is as much a question of theology as science, but most importantly, whether life begins at the time of fertilization before implantation in the womb is an active question. There is a debate. It is nonsense to think that a law enacted in 1872, when there was no concept of in vitro fertilization, would apply in such a situation.
Mitchell cited the state constitution and said ambiguities should be resolved in favor of the embryo. How distorted is this? He came up with a hypothetical future scenario in which a fetus was delivered in an artificial womb and concluded that such children would not be considered entitled to legal protection. Therefore, an “extrauterine child” must be considered a fetus subject to the law.
As I said, welcome to the theocracy. Since this is Alabama, even the dissenting justices cited his “deeply held personal views on the sanctity of life.”
This decision is dangerous on two levels. One is immediate, the other is long-term but equally sinister.
There is an immediate crisis in the availability of IVF in Alabama. If the embryo is a fetus protected by wrongful death statutes, as the clinic and the Alabama Medical Association argued, creating and storing the embryo would involve undue risk.
The ruling “almost certainly eliminates the creation of frozen embryos through in vitro fertilization” in the state, dissenting Judge Greg Cook wrote. The costs of exposure to civil litigation are significant, and although Alabama’s criminal homicide code only refers to “fetuses in the womb,” no one knows what could happen from a criminal prosecution standpoint. Ominously, the Alabama Supreme Court said there was “no opportunity” to decide that issue.
The long-term danger, and indeed the obvious long-term goal, is to raise and expand the definition of fetal personhood and to pursue reproductive technologies that include contraceptive methods and fertilized eggs. Will fertility clinics be allowed to dispose of unused frozen embryos? Could states ban IVF altogether? Will IUDs, oral contraceptives, or the morning-after pill be banned?
The ultimate goal, of course, is to ensure that a fertilized egg is declared a human being from the moment of conception under the state constitution and ultimately the 14th Amendment. And think about who is at the forefront of that movement. Tom Parker is the current Chief Justice of Alabama.