# Alabama declares frozen embryos to be children **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 21, 2024, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883 "2024-02-21T14:11:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/41 "2024-02-21T20:23:12Z")
I’ll allow it. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/42 "2024-02-21T20:27:50Z")
Do you want to know my honest reaction when I heard this news? Relief that this – for once – wasn’t Texas. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/43 "2024-02-21T20:28:42Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I’m wondering if this ruling has any implications around birth control methods that act or sometimes act by preventing implantation - such as oral contraceptives and IUD’s. I think there have already been attempts to do so using existing laws against aborting blastocysts and embryos from the womb. No time to look it up right now – maybe it was only arguments against such forms of contraception that I saw and not attempts at actual legal action. (Yet.) ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/44 "2024-02-21T20:31:16Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > What if you ate some tuna and then used your fishy breath to try to catch a cat? Or to discourage some guy you really don’t want around! 😆 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/45 "2024-02-21T20:32:58Z")
Who is the legal guardian of the kidcicles? If it is the parents, can the clinic just knock on the front door, hand them over and walk away? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/46 "2024-02-21T21:07:45Z")
Kind of weird, isn’t it? Like Alabama decided to say “Hold my beer” and one-up Texas. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/47 "2024-02-21T22:56:09Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Sorry, Johnny and Jane, you only get 1/12 shares each, because your dad has 10 frozen children that get the other 10 shares. What is the process for getting a SSN for these children so you can add them to your income tax forms? If the parents get divorced, what is the process for asking for child support? I mean, there must be some sort of costs to keep them alive. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > If it is the parents, can the clinic just knock on the front door, hand them over and walk away? I don’t see why not, as long as they are prepared to care for their children. Looks like they have to be stored in liquid nitrogen to keep them “alive”. I guess if they don’t have liquid nitrogen, they might call CPS as they walk away. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/48 "2024-02-21T23:02:42Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > IVF is dead in the state > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Which is why all IVF treatment will leave that state. > **[After Ruling, University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System Pauses I.V.F....](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/us/university-alabama-birmingham-ivf-embryo-ruling.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20240221&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=124010543&segment_id=158786&user_id=f45323b20a5efd1ec25889e1387159d7)** > > The U.A.B. system said it was worried about potential criminal prosecutions after Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/49 "2024-02-22T10:47:07Z")
There is quite a bit of money in IVF for health companies and providers. I can imagine that the relevant companies are lobbying like crazy behind the scenes right now to have this decision reversed somehow. If this spreads, this is a threat to a non-negligible source of revenue for them. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/50 "2024-02-22T11:01:33Z")
Maybe post-hysterectomy women could make money by offering to get implanted with the leftover embryos, saving the “parents” the cost of setting up a fund to maintain their frozen embryos forever. I imagine there’s still quite a few frozen embryos hanging around in Alabama, with no way to dispose of them. Hey, if God wants that child to be born, the lack of a uterus shouldn’t cause a problem for Him. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/51 "2024-02-22T15:44:53Z")
While this decision is (rightfully) shocking to reasonable people, it is part and parcel of the “pro-life” strategy for decades now – keep pushing the Overton window further and further toward the most absolutist pro-life positions so that what once were politically poisonous positions now look like reasonable compromises. Look at how “rape, incest and health of the mother” exceptions – once thought to be necessary to make abortion restrictions acceptable to voters – are increasingly falling away from states’ abortion bans. I can easily see the Alabama legislature coming along and providing some sort of protection for IVF practitioners such as a limited liability shield while reaffirming that frozen embryos are children. See how that’s such a reasonable compromise between these two positions? Who can be opposed to that? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/52 "2024-02-22T16:05:32Z")
If frozen life is equal to thawed life, I now have a list of people we can freeze…and it seems they won’t even mind. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/53 "2024-02-22T16:07:26Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > if God wants that child to be born, the lack of a uterus shouldn’t cause a problem for Him. Ectopic pregnancies happen occasionally. They’re one of the reasons that getting pregnant in a no-abortion state is flat out dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/54 "2024-02-22T16:13:24Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > Look at how “rape, incest and health of the mother” exceptions – once thought to be necessary to make abortion restrictions acceptable to voters – are increasingly falling away from states’ abortion bans. Still are, which is why they’ve tried set things up to sidestep taking things directly to voters. And largely, though not entirely, succeeded at it. It’s what happened in Ohio - the GOP desperately tried to keep the issue out of the direct hands of the voters, but when that failed, the voters solidly passed several abortion protections. Ditto Kansas. Whenever voters are actually given a direct vote, they tend to vote generally for allowing abortion with reasonable time limits that still include reasonable exceptions for the health of the mother But those states are still pretty conservative. It’s just that most voters aren’t strictly single issue. And politicians can still obfuscate or lie about what they support, about what they have done and about what they will do and get away with it. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/55 "2024-02-22T16:23:45Z")
Overpopulation is an existential thread to the planet that will eventually result in mass starvation (even more than now) and the eventual near-extinction of our species. But “God’s will” and all. Glad I won’t be here to see it. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/56 "2024-02-22T22:06:38Z")
How does this affect the 1-2 million/oocytes (eggs) a normal female ovary contains about at birth? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/57 "2024-02-22T22:11:11Z")
Another one: > **[Second Alabama provider stops IVF care after court deems embryos ‘children’](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/22/alabama-fertility-pause-ivf-embryo-ruling)** > > Alabama Fertility halts new procedures ‘due to the legal risk’ after state supreme court says embryos are ‘extrauterine children’ ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/58 "2024-02-22T22:16:01Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > How does this affect the 1-2 million/oocytes (eggs) a normal female ovary contains about at birth? They’re not fertilized, so the decision doesn’t cover them. Their take, however little sense it makes, is that conception is the dividing line. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/59 "2024-02-22T22:20:32Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Overpopulation is an existential thread to the planet that will eventually result in mass starvation (even more than now) and the eventual near-extinction of our species. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883/60 "2024-02-22T23:27:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Cite? Sorry, forgot where I was. No cite. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-declares-frozen-embryos-to-be-children/997883.md?page=4)