Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Alabama Clinics Ask Supreme Court To Consider Ruling Finding Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children’

Flickr/Tony Webster

Two Alabama in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics asked the Supreme Court last week to weigh a state court decision finding frozen embryos are children.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos are legally considered children under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, enabling couples to proceed with wrongful death lawsuits after their embryos were allegedly destroyed by a patient at the hospital where they were stored. In a petition filed on Aug. 1, the clinics argued the ruling violated their due process right for “fair notice” that their conduct could result in prosecution and that the court did not determine whether the couple who sued had standing.

“The unprecedented decision (and the liability it creates) defies the foundational due process mandate that individuals receive fair notice that their conduct is statutorily prohibited before it be judged, such that individuals can fashion their conduct according to clear statutory directives,” the petition states. “To make matters worse, and despite Petitioners’ repeated pleas, the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court lacks any assessment as to whether Respondents — who benefited from the very medical procedure that they now seek to recover damages in connection with — have adequate standing to litigate the issue on behalf of themselves and the Alabamians who now find themselves bound to a legal regime ‘for which they had neither input, nor redress, nor a hearing.'”

The IVF clinic in February’s Alabama Supreme Court decision holding frozen embryos are children for purposes of the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act has asked the US Supreme Court to hear the case.https://t.co/8J30ZNVMkc

— John Doe (@fedjudges) August 5, 2024

In March, Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law that offers immunity from prosecution to receivers and providers of IVF services. Multiple IVF clinics shut down in the aftermath of the ruling.

A number of Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, spoke against the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling after it came out.

“We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post at the time. “That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every State in America.”