By Emma Waters, First Things, Feb. 27, 2024
Emma Waters is a research associate for the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family at The Heritage Foundation.
Do human embryos deserve the same protections as human beings?
This is the question that drove three sets of parents—whose embryonic children were destroyed at an Alabama hospital’s fertility clinic—to sue the clinic and hospital under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court released a 7-2 landmark decision in favor of protecting embryonic human life from destruction.
These three sets of parents had created embryos through in vitro fertilization (IVF) with the hopes of conceiving children despite their struggles with infertility. An Alabama clinic was responsible for preserving embryonic children in a sub-zero cryopreservation facility while the parents and embryos awaited implantation. One day in 2020, a patient from the hospital wandered into the storage area, which was unsecured. The patient unwittingly picked up the embryo container and suffered severe freezer-burn, which made the patient drop the container. Unfortunately, the embryonic children were destroyed the moment their container shattered on the ground. …
