News outlets are buzzing about IVF (in vitro fertilization) because of a recent occurrence in Alabama.
In mid-February, the Alabama Supreme Court got involved after several couples found out their IVF-made embryos had been negligently killed.
The court ruled that embryos, whether in their mother’s uterus or in a fertility clinic test tube, are covered by Alabama’s wrongful death statute. In response, three fertility clinics stopped offering IVF.
To understand what happened here, important distinctions must be made.
The court did not say that embryos have full constitutional rights.
Recognizing the humanity of embryos who are negligently killed is a step in the right direction. But in Alabama’s ruling, this only applies to embryos who were wrongfully killed, not those who are intentionally or inevitably killed.
Infertility can be an incredibly painful burden and is increasingly common. But the solution cannot be to deny legal protections to human embryos or to allow them to be frozen or killed at will in America’s IVF industry.
The recent Alabama Supreme Court decision didn’t grant these babies constitutional rights - it should have - but it did say, at minimum, if a fertility clinic recklessly allows these babies to be destroyed, the parents can sue.
The fact that politicians on either side of the aisle are chastising the court defies reason and justice. A human life has human rights, equally, whether conceived naturally or via IVF, and deserves the same human rights to not be killed as a born baby does.
I wish the Alabama court said embryos have equal status under the law like any other child - that you cannot kill them, manipulate them, or do medical experiments on them.
Three clinics stopped offering IVF after this ruling. In response, just a few days ago, Alabama lawmakers proposed a bill to protect IVF. The bill passed the House in a 94-6 vote.
So now an IVF clinic can recklessly destroy embryos, with no recourse for the parents.
More concern is being shown about lawsuits than about respecting and saving innocent, human lives.
We must think about the lives being lost here. Truthfully, even the word “frozen” can give a dehumanizing connotation, and the act of freezing is one of the reasons why IVF is such a morally fraught process. Leaving human beings frozen for years violates their dignity.
Additionally, the practice of IVF is riddled with risks. Millions of embryos have been killed in the process of trying to bring about successful pregnancies, or “donated” and killed during science experiments.
Those who were created through IVF can suffer negative emotional and physical side effects, such as survivor’s guilt, increased risk of hospital admission, perinatal mortality, cerebral palsy, and other birth defects.
For embryos already created in this way, the reality is that these are little babies, just a few weeks old. It’s a biological fact that a human embryo is someone’s son or daughter. Even if created outside the loving union of husband and wife, children created through IVF contain value and inherent dignity, equal to any other baby.
If the baby in utero at three weeks old is a human, the baby in a petri dish at three weeks old is a human, too.
Human rights are universal and inalienable and every human possesses the right to life.
Each person, from the tiniest embryo to an elder nearing the end of life, has incalculable value and deserves guaranteed legal protection.
The foundational moral truth, that human life begins at the moment of fertilization, is written on our hearts and backed up by basic science found in any biology textbook.
The federal Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees every person equal protection under the law—including preborn children, and specifically including preborn children created by IVF.
We must keep fighting until this protection is recognized and applied in every circumstance.
For Life,
Lila Rose
Founder and President
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