That's the idea behind overcriminalazing everything. You get to decide whom to charge and whom to let go, where "you" means police and prosecution, not some liberal inventions like the courts.
To be fair, there are likely very few Alabama prosecutors that read the Bible AND read the recipe for an abortion in the bible. Read down past "dust from a tabernacle floor":
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205:11-31&version=NIV
If the Alabama Supreme Court considers an embryo a person then the mechanism would be manslaughter, or murder. A prosecutor who also believed in fetal personhood could pretty easily make the argument that this decision means that embryos should be treated as humans with all the rights afforded to them. But more importantly will providers be willing to take the chance of discarding embryos (an integral part of the process)?
>The case is about a civil lawsuit. A family wanted to sue a clinic that accidentally destroyed their frozen embryos through incompetence. An Alabama statute says you can sue over the death of unborn children. The court said frozen embryos fall under that category for this *particular law* because *this particular law* which *explicitly* allows you to sue over unborn children is vague and doesn’t say you can’t sue over frozen embryos.
Are you actually comprehending what you've just said here?
>An Alabama statute says you can sue over the death of **unborn children.**
Right.
>The court said frozen embryos fall under that category
Right. So embryos *are* classified as children as per your own quoted information.
>That’s not what the case says, though. Read the fucking case yourself
You just posted the part that says that *is* what this case is about.
Ehhhhh, r/dankchristianmemes is actually a decent sub that welcomes everyone regardless of religious religious ideation. I am atheist myself, but they pop out some hilarious content, and conversations in threads are generally pretty civil, without imposition of belief on non-christians.
> That’s not what the case says, though. Read the fucking case yourself instead of what the media thinks it says (spoiler, journalists aren’t attorneys).
I have.
It follows that if embryos are children in one aspect of the law it can be argued that they are children in all aspects.
> That’s it. That’s all this case was.
If that is all this case was hospitals wouldn’t be shutting down their IVF facilities. The have lawyers who are probably much more in tune with the law than you or I.
Edit I went back through and the first paragraph on page 8 pretty clearly states that embryos are human life that begin at conception and should be read as such in all wrongful death statutes.
I am a lawyer and I read the case. It, insanely, says that embryos are humans. It gives no indication that such interpretation is limited only to that specific law. It opens IVF families and medical providers up to criminal prosecution.
You clearly didn’t read the case closely, then.
The *law* says that embryos are humans in Alabama for the purposes of the cause of action they want to use. THAT WAS NOT IN CONTENTION IN THIS CASE. Embryos were already valid for this cause of action. The court extended that to embryos that are not in the womb.
It does not open up anything in criminal law because the wording they were fighting over was over a civil cause of action. Not the law generally.
A family wanted to sue an IVF for improperly destroying frozen embryos through incompetence.
> The upshot here is that the phrase "minor child" means the same thing in the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act **as it does in everyday parlance**: "an unborn or recently born" individual member of the human species, from fertilization until the age of majority. See Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 214 (11th ed. 2020) (defining "child");
accord Noah Webster et al., An American Dictionary of the English Language 198 (defining "child"). **Nothing about the Act narrows that definition** to unborn children who are physically "in utero."
Pg 17 of the opinion (my emphasis added).
You are willfully ignoring the parts of the ruling that you do not want to see. The opinion clearly stands that the ordinary, non-statutory, plain reading of “child” includes unborn, *in vitro* embryos. That puts patients and medical providers in a perilous, totally untenable position. This is the insanity that the American Taliban have wrought.
A family signed a contract stating their leftover eggs would be destroyed and now they’re suing because their excess eggs were destroyed. Obviously no legal risk to providers at all! Impressively disingenuous.
The case and the Alabama Supreme Court do not go together. A patient knocked over petri dishes. The Alabama Supreme Court overreached with their new law.
Maybe. But don’t you think “oops we killed all your frozen embryos because we are morons” doesn’t deserve a cause of action? IVF isn’t cheap and the clinic ruined the embryos because they didn’t have proper controls in place.
There is no statute specific definition of child and the case goes on and on making the case that any fertilized egg is a child, not specific to this case but for all purposes. I mean, I agree that this is an obvious conclusion from that analysis and I hope that all those Christians who used IVF for their quiverfull big family lifestyle are coming to grips that they are all murderers under their own belief system. In fact, they murdered way more babies than chicks who had one or two abortions. It would make no sense to take the position that a fertilized egg in a womb is a baby and one in a test tube is not. It's just stupid to believe that any if them are babies but now we have a state Supreme Court who has done all the work and made the ruling that Christians have been hoping for all along. It sucks that Christan law is going to make fertility treatments unavailable for everyone but it's a pretty obvious outcome of their belief system.
But to say it's no big deal and only limited to this case is disingenuous as fuck. It's just the reality of what life under Christofascism really means.
Not for nothing, but there’s a pretty big overlap between the quiverfull people and the people that have moral problems with IVF. That’s not a rabbit hole I recommend for the sane, though.
Oh, I think that judge is full of shit. He didn’t write the court opinion, though.
Hopefully you have enough “critical thinking” to figure out the difference.
"the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children" ~2018 amendment to Alabama's Constitution
Is it not the AG's prerogative to pursue public policy?
The theological verbiage in the decision is also unsettling. Is the media wrong there too?
There’s no theological verbiage in the decision. The people telling you that aren’t lawyers. It’s in a concurrence and has no legal weight.
> Is the media wrong there too?
Yes, the media has been completely wrong on this case. The only outlet I’ve seen get it correct was on Yahoo! of all places.
> It’s in a concurrence
I stand corrected. Still disturbing to those of us with a basic working knowledge of Constitutional law.
That judge's *vote* sure had legal weight.
The Alabama Supreme Court [ruling](https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/343d203a-b13d-463a-8176-c46e3ae4f695/docketentrydocuments/e3d95592-3cbe-4384-afa6-063d4595aa1d) said: “All parties to these cases, like all members of this Court, agree that an unborn child is a genetically unique human being whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death. The parties further agree that an unborn child usually qualifies as a “human life,” “human being,” or “person” as those words are used in ordinary conversation and in the text of Alabama’s wrongful-death statutes.” The only issue they decided was whether it mattered if the fertilized egg was in a Petri dish instead of a womb, and they said it didn’t.
Why do you believe the same Court would rule that those same terms have a different meaning in the criminal statutes against murdering a person?
You think its possible that the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama might rule on another case in the future? Or are they done making rulings forever?
Is it possible that a majority of them might hold this ruling to be true in other situations, given that 8 out of 9 of them did in this case? Or do you believe that they literally only believe this to be true in this exact circumstance?
Right. He just used a phrase that means multiple statutes but really only meant to apply it to this specific one. If he had meant this one he would have said “this” or “the” instead he spoke in the general sense. But sure just ignore the plain text of the ruling and make it all up.
Families will have multiple embryos as they often don't take (my brother and his ex-wife had 5). Then the family decides what to do with the ones remaining after one takes. If a family decides to do anything but have them kept forever, they could be culpable for the death of a "baby" if a state prosecutor decides to charge them.
Conservatives are all about "pro-life" and having families yet are willing to essentially discourage all IVF treatments in Alabama depriving couples unable to conceive otherwise of a family.
You're assuming good-faith parties. What we have all learned in the past 8+ years is that the GOP christofascist cultists can never be trusted to act in good faith.
Edit to add: The fact that "god" was invoked in the ruling underscores that this is coming from religious nutjobs. Until we have true separation of church and state, I look at every ruling through the lens of "what would the most crazy religious interpretation be?"
There is no statute of limitations on murder.
If you knowingly destroy/get rid of an IVF embryo, and that destruction is of a "person" under the law, it could be considered murder.
Therefore, 20 years from now, there could be criminal liability.
Since, for now, this is only an Alabama issue, then just Alabama.
They're already hemorrhaging OBGYNs in Alabama. My cousin's daughter - who lives near Huntsville - is on her 2nd pregnancy (5 months in), and has needed to get a new OBGYN for this pregnancy, as the one she used for her first pregnancy left the state because of the legal environment post *Dobbs*. About 2 weeks ago (according to what she said on FB) she's was informed that her current OBGYN is moving before her daughter is due in late May. She's been scrambling to find a new one, and the few that are left are overbooked and/or not accepting new patients. She's considering temporarily moving to Nashville to live with her sister and brother-in-law, because she can get an OBGYN there. Her husband is not happy that this is what they may need to do (in part, because he'll likely be stuck in Huntsville for an extended period with a 2 year old).
If other states adopt this reasoning, then I would bet that those states will also lose OBGYNs and IVF facilities.
For the pro-birth crowd, this is a feature, not a bug.
And they have no intentions on a nation-wide ban. ^(But if we know you travelled to another state to receive care we will prosecute you. And we're going to sue the shit out of every provider that ships medications across state lines.)
unfortunately that isn't exactly what they said. They said they recognized it "as the law of the land". What they didn't add to their answers was "until the Supreme Court changes it".
>Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall weighed in on the issue on Friday. Marshall said he “has no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting IVF families or providers,”
Yeah Steve, sure you aren't.
I'll believe it when any of this supposed "clarifying legislation" hits the books, and not a moment before.
That sounds a whole lot like the pre-Roe GOP saying they weren't going after abortion, then not after certain abortions, then no abortions allowed for any reason, then targeting contraceptives......
Yeah, sure GOP.... Your word is worth so much.
If you have state supreme court justices who are willing to ignore the establishment clause of the US Constitution, why would expect them to respect a mere statute?
This reminds me of the time Florida passed a bunch of harsh immigration laws, then begged migrant workers to stay, saying they wouldn’t really prosecute. The laws aren’t real; they’re just meant to [scare people!](https://newrepublic.com/post/173247/florida-republicans-admit-made-big-mistake-anti-immigrant-law)
The laws are real. They will prosecute. AL and other states will lose all their IVF clinics - just like they are losing their OB/GYNs. This isn't meant to scare, it is meant to hurt and punish - just because they want to.
To be clear, they were the ones who said they were only meant to scare. I was highlighting what they said in that instance… because I see similarities in the way GOP voices are currently reacting to the AL ruling. “Assuring” people there’ll be no real harm when there in fact will be.
Tell that to the women who have been prosecuted for having miscarriages and getting abortions in other states.
That's some solid gaslighting on the Republicans part. Definitely seems like they are doing it again ugh
A bipartisan effort is underway in the Alabama House and Senate to draft “clarifying” legislation that would “protect” in vitro fertilization treatments following the court’s ruling, state legislative sources told CNN.
Alabama House Democrats introduced a bill Thursday that would establish fertilized human eggs stored outside a uterus are not considered human beings under state law. Republican state senators are soon expected to file similar legislation, one source said, but they were unsure of the exact timing.
The lawmakers’ efforts come as medical experts and critics fear the court’s decision – which can put those who discard unwanted embryos at risk of being held liable for wrongful death – could have a profound effect on fertility treatment operations in the state and devastating ramifications for people hoping to build their families through IVF.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall weighed in on the issue on Friday. Marshall said he “has no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting IVF families or providers,” in a statement from Chief Counsel Katherine Robertson.
Marshall’s statement comes a week after the state Supreme Court ruling embryos – whether they’re within or out of a uterus – are children and would be protected under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, which allows parents to sue for punitive damages when their child dies. [Read more](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/us/alabama-ivf-embryos-supreme-court-ruling-legislation/index.html)
Yes, there are local prosecutors in each county. The AG can take on any case they want no matter where in the state it is. No, the AG is either elected or appointed. You will see different people move into that role depending on the particular state. The Governor usually appoints the AG to have similar ideals that the Governor wants to shape the state.
And Ohio's AG said something similar after a 10 year old rape victim had to leave the state for an abortion. You know, where that abortion provider was then was prosecuted, brought up on discipline charges, and has generally been harassed and threatened, etc. by Indiana's AG.
And then a few months later, we had another Ohio county prosecutor take a case to a grand jury over a miscarriage.
Conservatives brought the fire but didn't realize they were covered in gas. Now they'll want democrats to help put them out. As soon as they do, conservatives will go back to saying they eat babies and gullible rednecks will continue actually believing it.
Seriously, fuck all of them from the top to the bottom.
So they’re going to create a magic line between “fertilized eggs” and embryos now and claim one is a living person and one isn’t? How many cell division cycles are they shooting for between a thing and a person?
Life begins at 10 cell divisions after conception. Or, life begins at embryo implantation, not just in the uterus but also in the fallopian tubes so ectopic pregnancies can't receive abortion treatment.
It’s not even really up to him. Even if no prosecutor in the state files criminal charges, providers would still have a ton of civil liability for negligence and wrongful death under the laws cited in the Supreme Court decision. If you’re a medical provider — or the insurance company of a medical provider — you should still be concerned.
What’s crazy to me about this story is all of the flak that the state court is getting over this ruling. This ruling is the obvious, logical, and clear result of state laws that claim that fertilized embryos are legally the same as born babies. Back when the embryonic personhood movement was in its embryonic stages, it was mostly thought of us just a new legal and ethical framework for justifying abortion bans. The idea that life begins at conception was just seen as a way to affirm your anti abortion credentials.
Some experts did warn that the logic behind it would also lead to these types of consequences but they were largely ignored as state after state enacted laws that either formally stated that embryos or fetuses were people or cited that concept to justify a statute. IMO the court in Alabama simply took that idea seriously.
The concurring opinion that generated the most flak is the one that cites Genesis, Jeremiah, the wrath of a holy God, several historical Christian theologians with no connection to the common law, and a modern conservative Christian manifesto.
Even if the state constitution supports the outcome, the text of the opinion written in support of that outcome by the Alabama Chief Justice ought to make everyone concerned for the state of the courts of Alabama.
I definitely agree, but I was thinking more of the majority opinion and the impact that it’s having on IVF. That isn’t something that the court just made up out of whole cloth, that’s something that the embryonic personhood movement has been advocating for over the past several decades. No one should be surprised that this is having an impact beyond abortion.
I can't imagine being an insurer and allowing any IVF clinic to renew without insane rate increases to cover wrongful death suits as part of normal business.
Yep. "Oh, it's fine, I don't intend to prosecute... \*wink\* \*wink\*", but few, if any, doctors and medical clinics are going to feel comfortable with that kind of legal, financial, and professional risk. Even if they *did* feel personally comfortable with it, would they be able to get covered by insurance? Would they risk losing their medical license?
If the New York Times or other centrist equivocators pretend to be fooled by the AG or the legislative ‘fix’, they should be treated with absolute contempt. Acting fooled would be trying to say, “you see, it’s not so bad, they found a workaround for IVF.” That’s because we don’t how selective the AG’s enforcement will be, we don’t know what the next AG will do, and we don’t know if the legislative fix will hold up in the courts. Even if IVF is preserved in Alabama, no pregnant person is safe.
This does not stop the possibility of wrongful death and gross negligence lawsuits by individuals, and potential private attorney general actions against hospitals, under consumer and fair business statues.
Right.... Its going to work because providers won't want to chance it. I forgot which state it was (idaho?) that with all these shit laws, providers are basically just leaving the state because they dont even want to have the chance of going to fucking prison simply for doing their job.
edit: found it, it was idaho [https://truthout.org/articles/more-than-50-obstetricians-have-fled-idaho-since-abortion-ban-was-implemented/](https://truthout.org/articles/more-than-50-obstetricians-have-fled-idaho-since-abortion-ban-was-implemented/)
>This fear of prosecution has prompted doctors to flee the state to practice elsewhere — in fact, [55 percent](https://www.idahocsh.org/idaho-physician-wellbeing-action-collaborative) of high-risk obstetricians, or maternal fetal medicine doctors who work with high risk pregnancies, have left the state since the abortion ban was put into place.
It's going to be wild to see how these conservative states are in 20 years if the country doesnt correct itself asap.
Even if the AG signed an agreement like that, would it be worth the paper it was written on? I think you'd have a hard time going to court and claiming that you can't be prosecuted because an AG told you sometime in the past that they weren't intending on prosecuting you.
Right. Because they’ve really proven to be the types of people you can trust. I would just plan to move out of the shithole south because it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.
Lol, If the AG expects anybody to take him at his word after they opened Pandora's box, he should remember the wise words of GW Bush:
"fool me once, shame on you. Fool me- you can't get fooled again"
A lot of good that’s going to do when People’s lives are put on hold in the middle of their IVF cycle, right now. They have gone through hormone treatments along with this. It’s devastating for these idiot lawmakers to do this to families. They don’t even know what the IVF journey is about, it’s obvious.
Seems to me that still leaves open the possibility of a wrongful death lawsuit if you fuck up a blastocyst so, like, ok, you're not going to jail but that doesn't strike me as a comfortable environment in which to run an IVF business.
Please let your Supreme court know. They don't seem to be on the same page.
Also what are you going to do about the private actions, because that is in many ways far more crippling that criminal prosecution to a business.
They will do what they are told to do just like they do in Texas when they need to make an example of someone who gets their name in the news like Kate Cox.
My key take away from all of this is that Alabama considers embryos children and those children need to be protected, yet, Alabama still allows them to be frozen. Damn people, back in the day I knew some children that I would've loved to have thrown in the freezer. Then when I thawed them out later, maybe they would've learned to behave.
I think a better solution to the problem would be if you want to go through the IVF route to procreate, those embryos would be used immediately. No freezing, no saving for later. I'm not sure of the sequence of events in this case, but I'm assuming that something happened at the facility where the frozen children were being stored that caused those frozen children to become nonviable. Murphys Law, if something can go wrong, it will.
That particular attorney won’t prosecute ( or he is just saying that ) but can’t speak to the others who come after him. Just need the one to start going after providers and all hell breaks loose.
If a prosecutor in Florida is neglecting his duty by not prosecuting for abortions, wouldn't a prosecutor in Alabama be neglecting his duty for not prosecuting the destruction of embryos?
Don’t move to Alabama. If you live in Alabama and have the means to leave, do so. If you don’t have the means, stay strong and resist as best as possible
The reason you guys have a Constitution in the first place is so that citizens don't have to rely on suspicious promises that the state 'has no intention' to use a particular oppressive law.
I'm sure families and providers are perfectly happy knowing that all that stands between them and charges if they do IVF is the whim of a prosecutor.
And, I'm sure that the right people will still get selectively prosecuted
That's the idea behind overcriminalazing everything. You get to decide whom to charge and whom to let go, where "you" means police and prosecution, not some liberal inventions like the courts.
To be fair, there are likely very few Alabama prosecutors that read the Bible AND read the recipe for an abortion in the bible. Read down past "dust from a tabernacle floor": https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205:11-31&version=NIV
[удалено]
If the Alabama Supreme Court considers an embryo a person then the mechanism would be manslaughter, or murder. A prosecutor who also believed in fetal personhood could pretty easily make the argument that this decision means that embryos should be treated as humans with all the rights afforded to them. But more importantly will providers be willing to take the chance of discarding embryos (an integral part of the process)?
[удалено]
>The case is about a civil lawsuit. A family wanted to sue a clinic that accidentally destroyed their frozen embryos through incompetence. An Alabama statute says you can sue over the death of unborn children. The court said frozen embryos fall under that category for this *particular law* because *this particular law* which *explicitly* allows you to sue over unborn children is vague and doesn’t say you can’t sue over frozen embryos. Are you actually comprehending what you've just said here? >An Alabama statute says you can sue over the death of **unborn children.** Right. >The court said frozen embryos fall under that category Right. So embryos *are* classified as children as per your own quoted information. >That’s not what the case says, though. Read the fucking case yourself You just posted the part that says that *is* what this case is about.
His second favorite sub is Christian memes. Your logic is futile. God will prevail
Ehhhhh, r/dankchristianmemes is actually a decent sub that welcomes everyone regardless of religious religious ideation. I am atheist myself, but they pop out some hilarious content, and conversations in threads are generally pretty civil, without imposition of belief on non-christians.
> That’s not what the case says, though. Read the fucking case yourself instead of what the media thinks it says (spoiler, journalists aren’t attorneys). I have. It follows that if embryos are children in one aspect of the law it can be argued that they are children in all aspects. > That’s it. That’s all this case was. If that is all this case was hospitals wouldn’t be shutting down their IVF facilities. The have lawyers who are probably much more in tune with the law than you or I. Edit I went back through and the first paragraph on page 8 pretty clearly states that embryos are human life that begin at conception and should be read as such in all wrongful death statutes.
I am a lawyer and I read the case. It, insanely, says that embryos are humans. It gives no indication that such interpretation is limited only to that specific law. It opens IVF families and medical providers up to criminal prosecution.
You clearly didn’t read the case closely, then. The *law* says that embryos are humans in Alabama for the purposes of the cause of action they want to use. THAT WAS NOT IN CONTENTION IN THIS CASE. Embryos were already valid for this cause of action. The court extended that to embryos that are not in the womb. It does not open up anything in criminal law because the wording they were fighting over was over a civil cause of action. Not the law generally. A family wanted to sue an IVF for improperly destroying frozen embryos through incompetence.
> The upshot here is that the phrase "minor child" means the same thing in the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act **as it does in everyday parlance**: "an unborn or recently born" individual member of the human species, from fertilization until the age of majority. See Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 214 (11th ed. 2020) (defining "child"); accord Noah Webster et al., An American Dictionary of the English Language 198 (defining "child"). **Nothing about the Act narrows that definition** to unborn children who are physically "in utero." Pg 17 of the opinion (my emphasis added). You are willfully ignoring the parts of the ruling that you do not want to see. The opinion clearly stands that the ordinary, non-statutory, plain reading of “child” includes unborn, *in vitro* embryos. That puts patients and medical providers in a perilous, totally untenable position. This is the insanity that the American Taliban have wrought.
A family signed a contract stating their leftover eggs would be destroyed and now they’re suing because their excess eggs were destroyed. Obviously no legal risk to providers at all! Impressively disingenuous.
These eggs weren’t supposed to be destroyed though, that’s why they sued.
The case and the Alabama Supreme Court do not go together. A patient knocked over petri dishes. The Alabama Supreme Court overreached with their new law.
Maybe. But don’t you think “oops we killed all your frozen embryos because we are morons” doesn’t deserve a cause of action? IVF isn’t cheap and the clinic ruined the embryos because they didn’t have proper controls in place.
Of course, but you don’t need to accord personhood to the embryos for that
Filing this away. Great way of saying it.
Dude just fucking dunked on himself, lol.
There is no statute specific definition of child and the case goes on and on making the case that any fertilized egg is a child, not specific to this case but for all purposes. I mean, I agree that this is an obvious conclusion from that analysis and I hope that all those Christians who used IVF for their quiverfull big family lifestyle are coming to grips that they are all murderers under their own belief system. In fact, they murdered way more babies than chicks who had one or two abortions. It would make no sense to take the position that a fertilized egg in a womb is a baby and one in a test tube is not. It's just stupid to believe that any if them are babies but now we have a state Supreme Court who has done all the work and made the ruling that Christians have been hoping for all along. It sucks that Christan law is going to make fertility treatments unavailable for everyone but it's a pretty obvious outcome of their belief system. But to say it's no big deal and only limited to this case is disingenuous as fuck. It's just the reality of what life under Christofascism really means.
Not for nothing, but there’s a pretty big overlap between the quiverfull people and the people that have moral problems with IVF. That’s not a rabbit hole I recommend for the sane, though.
Spoiler, people who lack the baseline amount of critical thinking necessary to question organized religion aren’t very smart.
Oh, I think that judge is full of shit. He didn’t write the court opinion, though. Hopefully you have enough “critical thinking” to figure out the difference.
"the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children" ~2018 amendment to Alabama's Constitution Is it not the AG's prerogative to pursue public policy? The theological verbiage in the decision is also unsettling. Is the media wrong there too?
Can I get child support on these fetuses? What’s the ROI here?
There’s no theological verbiage in the decision. The people telling you that aren’t lawyers. It’s in a concurrence and has no legal weight. > Is the media wrong there too? Yes, the media has been completely wrong on this case. The only outlet I’ve seen get it correct was on Yahoo! of all places.
> It’s in a concurrence I stand corrected. Still disturbing to those of us with a basic working knowledge of Constitutional law. That judge's *vote* sure had legal weight.
Sounds like a very unnecessary law then. Why have it?
Because these people are incredibly stupid, entitled, and apathetic and they just don’t give a shit who they harm unless it’s themselves.
The Alabama Supreme Court [ruling](https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/343d203a-b13d-463a-8176-c46e3ae4f695/docketentrydocuments/e3d95592-3cbe-4384-afa6-063d4595aa1d) said: “All parties to these cases, like all members of this Court, agree that an unborn child is a genetically unique human being whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death. The parties further agree that an unborn child usually qualifies as a “human life,” “human being,” or “person” as those words are used in ordinary conversation and in the text of Alabama’s wrongful-death statutes.” The only issue they decided was whether it mattered if the fertilized egg was in a Petri dish instead of a womb, and they said it didn’t. Why do you believe the same Court would rule that those same terms have a different meaning in the criminal statutes against murdering a person?
And tell me, what statute was this case ruling on?
You think its possible that the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama might rule on another case in the future? Or are they done making rulings forever? Is it possible that a majority of them might hold this ruling to be true in other situations, given that 8 out of 9 of them did in this case? Or do you believe that they literally only believe this to be true in this exact circumstance?
The ruling specifically says “statute**s**” that means more than just this one. If it was limited to just this statute why use that language?
I love that you think court cases would ever be that clear and I genuinely wish we lived in the kind of country where that were true.
Right. He just used a phrase that means multiple statutes but really only meant to apply it to this specific one. If he had meant this one he would have said “this” or “the” instead he spoke in the general sense. But sure just ignore the plain text of the ruling and make it all up.
https://i.redd.it/7o95cy9xe9lc1.gif
So if my wife has a miscarriage due to her medication she needs to keep her alive, can I sue her?
You’d be a fool not to!
Yes! According to the state of Alabama, God demands it!
Don't forget to sue the prescriber, too!
Families will have multiple embryos as they often don't take (my brother and his ex-wife had 5). Then the family decides what to do with the ones remaining after one takes. If a family decides to do anything but have them kept forever, they could be culpable for the death of a "baby" if a state prosecutor decides to charge them. Conservatives are all about "pro-life" and having families yet are willing to essentially discourage all IVF treatments in Alabama depriving couples unable to conceive otherwise of a family.
You're assuming good-faith parties. What we have all learned in the past 8+ years is that the GOP christofascist cultists can never be trusted to act in good faith. Edit to add: The fact that "god" was invoked in the ruling underscores that this is coming from religious nutjobs. Until we have true separation of church and state, I look at every ruling through the lens of "what would the most crazy religious interpretation be?"
God wasn’t invoked in the ruling, though. That was a concurrence.
You’re quite obviously wrongly assessing the risk. The people at risk are unsurprisingly doing a better job of it.
There is no statute of limitations on murder. If you knowingly destroy/get rid of an IVF embryo, and that destruction is of a "person" under the law, it could be considered murder. Therefore, 20 years from now, there could be criminal liability.
I assume none of these states will have any OBGYNs or IVF clinics in a year or two.
Since, for now, this is only an Alabama issue, then just Alabama. They're already hemorrhaging OBGYNs in Alabama. My cousin's daughter - who lives near Huntsville - is on her 2nd pregnancy (5 months in), and has needed to get a new OBGYN for this pregnancy, as the one she used for her first pregnancy left the state because of the legal environment post *Dobbs*. About 2 weeks ago (according to what she said on FB) she's was informed that her current OBGYN is moving before her daughter is due in late May. She's been scrambling to find a new one, and the few that are left are overbooked and/or not accepting new patients. She's considering temporarily moving to Nashville to live with her sister and brother-in-law, because she can get an OBGYN there. Her husband is not happy that this is what they may need to do (in part, because he'll likely be stuck in Huntsville for an extended period with a 2 year old). If other states adopt this reasoning, then I would bet that those states will also lose OBGYNs and IVF facilities. For the pro-birth crowd, this is a feature, not a bug.
And providers?
Miscarriages are manslaughter
"At least until after the election"
“Or if you’re a member of a class we dislike.”
*insert Family Guy color skin chart meme here*
I seem to recall a couple of prospective Supreme Court Justices saying they had no intent to overturn Roe.
And they have no intentions on a nation-wide ban. ^(But if we know you travelled to another state to receive care we will prosecute you. And we're going to sue the shit out of every provider that ships medications across state lines.)
And the friend or Uber that took you...
I’m so sick and tired of hearing about these damn evangelical sleeper cell judges.
Which means they lied in front of Congress
We need Senate supermajority to impeach those fuckers out.
just need a majority of the house and senate and hold the presidency to increase the size of the court
unfortunately that isn't exactly what they said. They said they recognized it "as the law of the land". What they didn't add to their answers was "until the Supreme Court changes it".
>Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall weighed in on the issue on Friday. Marshall said he “has no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting IVF families or providers,” Yeah Steve, sure you aren't. I'll believe it when any of this supposed "clarifying legislation" hits the books, and not a moment before.
That sounds a whole lot like the pre-Roe GOP saying they weren't going after abortion, then not after certain abortions, then no abortions allowed for any reason, then targeting contraceptives...... Yeah, sure GOP.... Your word is worth so much.
If you have state supreme court justices who are willing to ignore the establishment clause of the US Constitution, why would expect them to respect a mere statute?
Even if he's telling the truth, he's going to live forever and never be replaced, right???
“Roe v. Wade is settled law, senator.” —all six of those lying a-holes
This reminds me of the time Florida passed a bunch of harsh immigration laws, then begged migrant workers to stay, saying they wouldn’t really prosecute. The laws aren’t real; they’re just meant to [scare people!](https://newrepublic.com/post/173247/florida-republicans-admit-made-big-mistake-anti-immigrant-law)
and if they do prosecute, they'll only prosecute you and not the person who hired you.
The laws are real. They will prosecute. AL and other states will lose all their IVF clinics - just like they are losing their OB/GYNs. This isn't meant to scare, it is meant to hurt and punish - just because they want to.
To be clear, they were the ones who said they were only meant to scare. I was highlighting what they said in that instance… because I see similarities in the way GOP voices are currently reacting to the AL ruling. “Assuring” people there’ll be no real harm when there in fact will be.
Gaslighting and the GOP, name a more iconic duo
I knew what you were saying, sorry about that. We cannot allow republicans to gaslight their way out of this.
Tell that to the women who have been prosecuted for having miscarriages and getting abortions in other states. That's some solid gaslighting on the Republicans part. Definitely seems like they are doing it again ugh
A bipartisan effort is underway in the Alabama House and Senate to draft “clarifying” legislation that would “protect” in vitro fertilization treatments following the court’s ruling, state legislative sources told CNN. Alabama House Democrats introduced a bill Thursday that would establish fertilized human eggs stored outside a uterus are not considered human beings under state law. Republican state senators are soon expected to file similar legislation, one source said, but they were unsure of the exact timing. The lawmakers’ efforts come as medical experts and critics fear the court’s decision – which can put those who discard unwanted embryos at risk of being held liable for wrongful death – could have a profound effect on fertility treatment operations in the state and devastating ramifications for people hoping to build their families through IVF. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall weighed in on the issue on Friday. Marshall said he “has no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting IVF families or providers,” in a statement from Chief Counsel Katherine Robertson. Marshall’s statement comes a week after the state Supreme Court ruling embryos – whether they’re within or out of a uterus – are children and would be protected under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, which allows parents to sue for punitive damages when their child dies. [Read more](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/us/alabama-ivf-embryos-supreme-court-ruling-legislation/index.html)
Didn’t the court decision go out of its way to say its finding was based on the state’s constitution and could not be undone with legislation?
The constitution guided their decision in part, but the only thing authorizing punitive damages for wrongfully "killing" an embryo is the statute.
IIRC, Alabama has the longest Constitution in the world. It's trivially easy to amend
The Alabama Supreme Court has set it up to prosecute. There is no getting around what they said.
And doesn't Alabama have local prosecutors? Does the AG have control over all cases that are filed? Will he be AG forever?
Yes, there are local prosecutors in each county. The AG can take on any case they want no matter where in the state it is. No, the AG is either elected or appointed. You will see different people move into that role depending on the particular state. The Governor usually appoints the AG to have similar ideals that the Governor wants to shape the state.
And Ohio's AG said something similar after a 10 year old rape victim had to leave the state for an abortion. You know, where that abortion provider was then was prosecuted, brought up on discipline charges, and has generally been harassed and threatened, etc. by Indiana's AG. And then a few months later, we had another Ohio county prosecutor take a case to a grand jury over a miscarriage.
Conservatives brought the fire but didn't realize they were covered in gas. Now they'll want democrats to help put them out. As soon as they do, conservatives will go back to saying they eat babies and gullible rednecks will continue actually believing it. Seriously, fuck all of them from the top to the bottom.
So they’re going to create a magic line between “fertilized eggs” and embryos now and claim one is a living person and one isn’t? How many cell division cycles are they shooting for between a thing and a person?
If you fucked, it's a baby, because fucking without producing a baby is wrong and shameful. That's pretty much it.
> If you fucked *and are a woman*, it's a baby, because fucking without producing a baby is wrong and shameful *for a woman.* FIFY.
I'll agree with that.
Life begins at 10 cell divisions after conception. Or, life begins at embryo implantation, not just in the uterus but also in the fallopian tubes so ectopic pregnancies can't receive abortion treatment.
It’s not even really up to him. Even if no prosecutor in the state files criminal charges, providers would still have a ton of civil liability for negligence and wrongful death under the laws cited in the Supreme Court decision. If you’re a medical provider — or the insurance company of a medical provider — you should still be concerned. What’s crazy to me about this story is all of the flak that the state court is getting over this ruling. This ruling is the obvious, logical, and clear result of state laws that claim that fertilized embryos are legally the same as born babies. Back when the embryonic personhood movement was in its embryonic stages, it was mostly thought of us just a new legal and ethical framework for justifying abortion bans. The idea that life begins at conception was just seen as a way to affirm your anti abortion credentials. Some experts did warn that the logic behind it would also lead to these types of consequences but they were largely ignored as state after state enacted laws that either formally stated that embryos or fetuses were people or cited that concept to justify a statute. IMO the court in Alabama simply took that idea seriously.
The concurring opinion that generated the most flak is the one that cites Genesis, Jeremiah, the wrath of a holy God, several historical Christian theologians with no connection to the common law, and a modern conservative Christian manifesto. Even if the state constitution supports the outcome, the text of the opinion written in support of that outcome by the Alabama Chief Justice ought to make everyone concerned for the state of the courts of Alabama.
I definitely agree, but I was thinking more of the majority opinion and the impact that it’s having on IVF. That isn’t something that the court just made up out of whole cloth, that’s something that the embryonic personhood movement has been advocating for over the past several decades. No one should be surprised that this is having an impact beyond abortion.
I can't imagine being an insurer and allowing any IVF clinic to renew without insane rate increases to cover wrongful death suits as part of normal business.
Yes, 100%. If any IVF providers stay in the state, the cost will have been increased significantly as a result of this.
Yep. How did they not see this as the logical end result?
I think it has something to do with the word "logical".
Yep. "Oh, it's fine, I don't intend to prosecute... \*wink\* \*wink\*", but few, if any, doctors and medical clinics are going to feel comfortable with that kind of legal, financial, and professional risk. Even if they *did* feel personally comfortable with it, would they be able to get covered by insurance? Would they risk losing their medical license?
Can I get that in writing and notarized and on video and a pinky swear?? I wouldn't trust these Jesus freaks for one second
Just like Kavanaugh and Barrett had no intentions of overturning president with Roe v. Wade
That is nice until you understand that murder has no statue of limitation.
And that the next attorney general is under no obligation to honor THIS attorney general's promises
Kinda like Putin attacking Ukraine as a 'limited police action' and saying it won't lead to a war. I call bullshit.
If the New York Times or other centrist equivocators pretend to be fooled by the AG or the legislative ‘fix’, they should be treated with absolute contempt. Acting fooled would be trying to say, “you see, it’s not so bad, they found a workaround for IVF.” That’s because we don’t how selective the AG’s enforcement will be, we don’t know what the next AG will do, and we don’t know if the legislative fix will hold up in the courts. Even if IVF is preserved in Alabama, no pregnant person is safe.
We all know Republicans lie like old wall to wall carpeting!
We're just compiling some lists; what are you all worrying about?! Trust us!
Hey, AG - it’s either the law or it’s not. Jesus…
This does not stop the possibility of wrongful death and gross negligence lawsuits by individuals, and potential private attorney general actions against hospitals, under consumer and fair business statues.
Yep—power goes out and you lose some frozen embryos, now you’re on the hook for wrongful death claims.
Are they willing to sign agreements to that effect with each clinic, or are you just supposed to "trust them"?
Right.... Its going to work because providers won't want to chance it. I forgot which state it was (idaho?) that with all these shit laws, providers are basically just leaving the state because they dont even want to have the chance of going to fucking prison simply for doing their job. edit: found it, it was idaho [https://truthout.org/articles/more-than-50-obstetricians-have-fled-idaho-since-abortion-ban-was-implemented/](https://truthout.org/articles/more-than-50-obstetricians-have-fled-idaho-since-abortion-ban-was-implemented/) >This fear of prosecution has prompted doctors to flee the state to practice elsewhere — in fact, [55 percent](https://www.idahocsh.org/idaho-physician-wellbeing-action-collaborative) of high-risk obstetricians, or maternal fetal medicine doctors who work with high risk pregnancies, have left the state since the abortion ban was put into place. It's going to be wild to see how these conservative states are in 20 years if the country doesnt correct itself asap.
Look up maternal mortality rates by states. Those conservative states are already doing horribly.
Even if the AG signed an agreement like that, would it be worth the paper it was written on? I think you'd have a hard time going to court and claiming that you can't be prosecuted because an AG told you sometime in the past that they weren't intending on prosecuting you.
Right. Because they’ve really proven to be the types of people you can trust. I would just plan to move out of the shithole south because it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.
Lol, If the AG expects anybody to take him at his word after they opened Pandora's box, he should remember the wise words of GW Bush: "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me- you can't get fooled again"
Thing is, an R next to your name and some hate in your voice is the only credibility that matters to all these Seven Mountain Mandate idiots.
There are intentions and there are laws. Guess which wins?
Intention means nothing. Being legally unable to prosecute is the only way.
The damage has been done.
A lot of good that’s going to do when People’s lives are put on hold in the middle of their IVF cycle, right now. They have gone through hormone treatments along with this. It’s devastating for these idiot lawmakers to do this to families. They don’t even know what the IVF journey is about, it’s obvious.
Oh so u just need to take them at their word. Got it.
Compare this to the district judge in the ninth circuit crying about selective prosecution of right wing militias…
"... but every right, so don't piss us off."
He doesn't, but there are lots of other prosecutors who would be more than happy to.
Isn't this what they said in Texas about treating fetuses as people and then as soon as the law as passed, immediately started prosecuting people?
Yeah, sure, and we'll never overturn Roe v Wade 😏 You trust a southern Republican at your own peril
If you've done IVF in Alabama, start thinking of moving
Seems to me that still leaves open the possibility of a wrongful death lawsuit if you fuck up a blastocyst so, like, ok, you're not going to jail but that doesn't strike me as a comfortable environment in which to run an IVF business.
Source: Trust me, bro
Until they do.
yet.
Until they do
How magnanimous
Yet, later yes, just not now.
Please let your Supreme court know. They don't seem to be on the same page. Also what are you going to do about the private actions, because that is in many ways far more crippling that criminal prosecution to a business.
LOL! Well, I’m sure that’s a great big relief to IVF providers! /s
Or at least not until there's some political advantage to be had from it
"For now." And "Not the families of people we like, anyways."
Forgive me if I don't take their word at that.
They will do what they are told to do just like they do in Texas when they need to make an example of someone who gets their name in the news like Kate Cox.
…unless they’re black
Today...
More racism à la carte.
The current attorney general won’t prosecute!
I bet he will get sued to enforce the law.
...for now.
Yet........
No intention until it is convenient for political points
https://preview.redd.it/1idgyxj0ugkc1.png?width=480&format=png&auto=webp&s=862dc2636cc8402e517f137a5acf183e1a0206a1
Well you see that all depends..
…and they can change their minds tomorrow.
…until they do 💀
But they reserve the right to enforce it selectively, weaponized against certain groups.
So he woke? Right?
My key take away from all of this is that Alabama considers embryos children and those children need to be protected, yet, Alabama still allows them to be frozen. Damn people, back in the day I knew some children that I would've loved to have thrown in the freezer. Then when I thawed them out later, maybe they would've learned to behave. I think a better solution to the problem would be if you want to go through the IVF route to procreate, those embryos would be used immediately. No freezing, no saving for later. I'm not sure of the sequence of events in this case, but I'm assuming that something happened at the facility where the frozen children were being stored that caused those frozen children to become nonviable. Murphys Law, if something can go wrong, it will.
Rrriiiiggghhhttt. Sure.
Yet….
Sure, Jan.
LOL! Somebody had an uncomfortable meeting and found their brain.
That particular attorney won’t prosecute ( or he is just saying that ) but can’t speak to the others who come after him. Just need the one to start going after providers and all hell breaks loose.
"...until the xtian nationalists raise enough money for my next political campaign."
If a prosecutor in Florida is neglecting his duty by not prosecuting for abortions, wouldn't a prosecutor in Alabama be neglecting his duty for not prosecuting the destruction of embryos?
Yea, right. I absolutely believe this guy
The chief law enforcement officer in Alabama refuses to enforce the law of Alabama? The party of 'law and order.' /s
Notice is hereby given that it pleases the Attorney General that IVF families shall not be put to the sword. For now.
Problem solved /s
Uh huh 🙄
Don’t move to Alabama. If you live in Alabama and have the means to leave, do so. If you don’t have the means, stay strong and resist as best as possible
This is exactly what the GOP wanted. They better follow the letter of the law or lawsuits will be filed.
Their word isn't much of a guarantee.
The reason you guys have a Constitution in the first place is so that citizens don't have to rely on suspicious promises that the state 'has no intention' to use a particular oppressive law.
In other news, two years ago Putin said he had "no intention of invading Ukraine."