The Yellowhammer State’s highest court is ruling that frozen embryos are legally children under state law. In a ruling issued Friday, Alabama’s Supreme Court declared that “the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.” The relevant case involved the question of whether or not parents could sue after their cryogenically frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed by an employee at a fertility clinic.
“The parties to these cases have raised many difficult questions,” wrote Justice Jay Mitchell in the court’s opinion, “including ones about the ethical status of extrauterine children, the application of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to such children, and the public-policy implications of treating extrauterine children as human beings.” However, the court determined that it did not need to answer each question raised, stating that ultimately “the relevant statutory text is clear: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies on its face to all unborn children, without limitation ...”
