Alabama Supreme Court rules that frozen embryos are protected in sanctity of life case

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday under state law that frozen human embryos are considered children, a ruling that may have significant ramifications for in vitro fertilization and other medical issues in the state, claim those opposed.

The state's "Wrongful Death of a Minor Act" is "sweeping and unqualified," the nine-judge court declared in its 8-1 decision, and its provisions extend to children "regardless of their location." 

The defendant, the Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C., and Mobile Infirmary Association d/b/a Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, attempted to argue that the embryos do not fit within the definition of a 'person' or 'child' under the law.

"It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation," the decision stated. "It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy."

The court stated that this conclusion was "especially true where, as here, the People of [Alabama] have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding 'unborn life' from legal protection."

Voters in Alabama adopted a state constitutional amendment in 2018 that upheld "the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children." The state also passed an abortion prohibition in 2019 that became fully operative upon the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

The decision of the state supreme court was made in response to a complaint filed by multiple parents whose frozen embryos had somehow been destroyed at a reproductive clinic. The plaintiffs had claimed that the state's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applied to the destruction.

The justices included quotes from Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin's commentary, as well as texts from Genesis that uphold the sanctity of human life, in their ruling.

"As Augustine observes, man surpasses other things, not in the fact that God Himself made man, as though He did not make other things; since it is written, 'The work of Thy hands is the heaven,' and elsewhere, 'His hands laid down the dry land,' but in this, that man is made to God's image." Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica First Part, Treatise on Man, Question 91, Art. 4 (Fathers of the English Dominican Province trans., Benziger Bros., Inc. 1947)."

"Further, Aquinas explained that every man has the image of God in that he 'possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God,' which imitates God chiefly in 'that God understands and loves Himself.' Id., First Part, Question 93, Art. 4."

"Thus, man's creation in God's image directs man to his last end, which is to know and love God. Id., Second Part, Question 1, Art. 8."

"Man's creation in God's image is the basis of the general prohibition on the intentional taking of human life. See Genesis 9:6.

The ruling further states, "In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: (1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself."

"Section 36.06 recognizes that this is true of unborn human life no less than it is of all other human life -- that even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory," the ruling added.

In their decision, the judges stated that the term "minor child" refers to "the same thing in the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act as it does in everyday parlance: 'an unborn or recently born' individual member of the human species, from fertilization until the age of majority."

"Nothing about the Act narrows that definition to unborn children who are physically 'in utero'," the court stated. "Instead, the Act provides a cause of action for the death of any 'minor child,' without exception or limitation."

While much of the country seems to be indoctrinated by anti-natalist progressives pushing the inverted ideology that abortion saves lives, Alabama is quietly doing its part to protect the unborn, with no exception.