An embryo is one of the earliest stages of development of a multicellular organism. But according to the Supreme Court of Alabama, it is a person, too — an unborn child, entitled to the same legal protections as any minor.
The court ruled on Feb. 16 that a fertility clinic patient who accidentally destroyed other patients’ frozen embryos could be liable in a wrongful death lawsuit, writing in its opinion that “the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” and that this includes “unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed.”
This has had immediate and profound consequences on the practice of in vitro fertilization in the state, with many fertility clinics already deciding to interrupt their services for fear of legal repercussions, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which has paused its IVF treatments, as has Alabama Fertility Services.
Can I freeze a few dozen embryos and then claim them as my dependants when filling my taxes?
Only in Alabama
This implies that evangelicals or fascism act based on logic; proven time and time again to be an absolute fantasy.
Yes.
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embryos
Not without being fertilized first.
Huh?
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That’s why they said ‘embryo’ not ‘egg’
What I don’t get about the fundies that think IVF is against god’s will - what about any other scientific breakthrough? What about antibiotics? Cars?
Hell, every time you fly you’re effectively spitting in the face of the “Almighty”.
Reading glasses always seem to be exempt for some reason.
Not to mention guns… they love guns
Not when others get them though, like the mulford act
conservatives like to squeek “that’s against god’s will” but when conservative needs a heart stent or pacemaker to keep him alive, then god’s will is not an issue. when conservative needs a kidney transplant, cancer treatment, or even glasses - there’s no questioning against how god created their bodies.
as always, there’s no biblical preachings when their asses and their life comfort are in question.
I have begun to interrupt myself on the many, many occasions when I realize the American Right does not care about ideological inconsistency and that I cannot better understand them or help anyone by recognizing them. It’s no fun but it’s less taxing than trying to understand their contradictory opinions.
By extension, even something as trivial as wearing clothes is against gods will. If their god didn’t want people to see everyone in their birth suit, then we would’ve had in built clothing that wasn’t form fitting and had a sac of air to turn everyone into a blob.
This just made me realize something. Hatred of knowledge is baked into the Bible.
Clothes weren’t a trivial thing for Adam and Eve. When they ate fruit from the tree of knowledge they learned that they should be ashamed of their nakedness and began wearing “clothes”. That was what tipped God off to the fact that they had eaten the fruit and is why they were kicked out of Eden.
So, according to the Bible, wearing clothes literally is against the will of God. Everything else we do with our knowledge is too since the ability to have knowledge derives from eating that fruit.
Nice misquote. It’s not the tree of knowledge, it’s the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There is a difference.
Biblically there’s nothing wrong with knowledge, as long as it’s appropriately balanced with faith.
That’s some good pedantry. “The tree of knowledge” is common shorthand for “the tree of knowledge of good and evil”. For example, take christianity.com.
Edit: I didn’t mean to ignore your real point. It seems to me that “knowledge of good and evil” is what leads people to oppose things like IVF. They believe that they understand what is good and what is evil and are imposing their opinions on everyone else.
Your argument appeared to be predicated upon “knowledge”, not “knowledge of good and evil”, hence the need for clarification. There is of course more to knowledge than good and evil.
I read some bickering about this amongst conservatives, and the reasoning seems to be:
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Conception should occur from sex because of the love between husband, wife, and God or something
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Typically, they’ll harvest(?) multiple embryos, check if they are viable or have genetic abnormalities, then discard those that aren’t viable or will result in major disabilities. To them, this is killing those unviable/unhealthy “babies”. Sometimes the couple will freeze multiple embryos as backups, but not need them after a successful pregnancy (or more). Those microscopic globs of cells that they call babies are then “murdered”. Their point is that this results in more deaths than lives.
I’m curious what their opinion would be if a woman wanted IVF after 5 miscarriages, was unable to get the treatment, and went on to have 7 more miscarriages, still without having a successful birth. To be real, fundie couples who refuse contraceptives and are hell bent on having a child could go through many more miscarriages than that.
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The proclamations they make are all to get their way and not about religion at all. These people grab at anything to pass laws they want.
Alabama claims destroying embryos is against God’s will yet not long ago they executed a prisoner using nitrogen gas which caused that person to suffer for several minutes before dying. The state claims it was a success. If they were so concerned with God’s will they shouldn’t have done that.
Scientific discovery, cars and antibiotics are not against Christian beliefs but I’m sure if a person singles out a single passage, then twist and spin it you could make life itself blasphemous.
These government folks passing crap laws are just using anything they can to get their way, similar to how children behave.
Well, I mean Truth Social is an abomination before god, so
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This seems like it has ramifications far beyond IVF.
What happens to the morning after pill?
What happens when an embryo doesn’t implant correctly? Or when a woman miscarries at 10 weeks? Will the woman be blamed based on myths about what causes miscarriages? Will a woman who exercised strenuously be accused of manslaughter or murder?
10-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage and 30-50% of fertilized eggs are lost during implantation. There is a lot of misinformation about what causes failed implantation and miscarriages.. It seems like this ruling, when combined with the false information, could make many women into “murderers”.
For these people, the answer to all of those is: yes, outlaw birth control and prosecute women for miscarrying.
Fascism doesn’t have to make sense and the cruelty is the point.
However “these people” aren’t a majority. Even in the US, and even in conservative states, the Republicans have faced legislative loss after legislative loss due to the overturning of Roe v Wade. This is one of the reasons why it’s particularly important to go out and vote, because conservative institutions are acting even crazier than their usual electorate and need to be put in check.
Unfortunately, “these people” seem to have taken over the Alabama Supreme Court and, possibly the US Supreme Court (we’ll see how they rule when this gets to them).
Hopefully, since Alabama’s Supreme Court justices are elected, they will be voted out over this ruling. Also, hopefully rationality will prevail at the US Supreme Court.
My reasoning for miscarriage is: the woman is not responsible, therefore the government is and should be prosecuted.
Nek minut: “a representative democracy has no obligation to represent the democratic will of the people.”
See “to serve and protect”
IUDs and some birth control pills work by preventing implantation. Those would be banned, too.
The terrorists must be eliminated. Stop playing defense and trying to roll back the damage and start going directly for them.
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All joking aside, both sides are just as bad as the other, right fellow Americans?
Democrats are literally in power 🤦♀️😂
The president doesn’t supremely adjudicate for Alabama, you hotdog.
Modern law, medicine and technology are incompatible with theocratic ideologies.
But according to the Supreme Court of Alabama, it is a person
That bunch of cells can barely be counted as living.
They’re certainly alive or there wouldn’t be any point in keeping them. What they’re not is people.
A frozen embryo is not really “alive”. Anywhere outside of a specific clinic in a specific container it would thaw and be destroyed immediately.
I know, where you are coming from, but counting a frozen embryo as alive is really stretching the meaning of alive.
Life is defined as “the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death”
None of these apply to embryos by themselves. Only when they’re implanted do they gain the capacity for these things.
If you couldn’t recognise the species even under a microscope, then no, it’s not a person.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Human_blastocyst.jpg
That’s a human blastocyst.
Frozen embryos are from the the stage before blastocysts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo_cryopreservation
Cryopreservation of embryos is the process of preserving an embryo at sub-zero temperatures, generally at an embryogenesis stage corresponding to pre-implantation, that is, from fertilisation to the blastocyst stage.
I remember when as a kid in the late 90’s, watching Stargate, I thought the US was cool. (Should’ve realised back then those were mostly Canadians in it, lol.) Now it seems like pure insanity over there.
Are they unintentionally doing these cells a favor by preventing them from being born human in a poor theocracy on a dying planet?
I’ll start taking Alabama seriously when their KFCs start putting fried eggs in their buckets with the rest of the chicken.
“What’re y’all complaining about? You got a WHOLE chicken, not just a few wings and legs!”
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Science sub, not politics.
Science doesn’t exist in a bubble, politics affects science.
No
Um, care to elaborate?
Yes?
Perchance?
