Alabama Supreme Court declares frozen embryos children, say they have the same rights as the unborn

The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos created through the in vitro fertilization process are children and have the same rights as “unborn children.” 

This opinion was issued Friday in a case involving three couples suing a fertility clinic after one of the workers accidentally dropped a container of their embryos and destroyed them.

A circuit court judge originally threw out the case due to the embryos not being covered under Alabama’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor Act," according to the Alabama Political Reporter.

In a concurring opinion, ALSC Chief Justice Tom Parker cited the Bible as to why the frozen embryos were children and should be protected. 

“When the People of Alabama adopted (the ‘sanctity of life’ provision of the state constitution), they did not use the term ‘inviolability,’ with its secular connotations, but rather they chose the term ‘sanctity,’ with all of its connotations,” Parker's opinion reads. 

“This kind of acceptance is not foreign to our Constitution, which in its preamble ‘invok[es] the favor and guidance of Almighty God,’ … and which declares that ‘all men … are endowed [with life] by their Creator.’ The Alabama Constitution’s recognition that human life is an endowment from God emphasizes a foundational principle of English common law, which has been expressly incorporated as part of the law of Alabama."