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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The facts of the original case are beyond bizarre and seem like some bad movie. A “patient” at a fertility clinic “eloped” and broke into the room that stored frozen embryos, broke into the storage and grabbed several frozen embryos (in their containers) with their bare hands. Since that was basically a serious freezer, the eloper’s hands were severely burned immediately from the freezing metal and so the eloper dropped all of the embryos he/she was carrying and them broke onto the floor. When the breach was discovered the frozen embryos essentially had died.

So this was a joint lawsuit from 3 of the affected families who lost embryos for “unlawful death”. [/quote]

It seems more like destruction of property rather than 'unlawful death' would have been the proper route here, unless you have a the zealous of a religious fanatic.[/quote]

So being a nerdy lawyer I was very curious about this case. It seems to be very Alabama law specific and hinged on whether the term "unborn child" of Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act includes embryos kept outside a uterus or "extrauterine children" aka frozen embryos kept in a freezer. Alabama already defines embryos as children because they're ruled life begins at conception but now we are talking about frozen embryos not inside a woman's uterus.

In this crazy case, the fertility clinic had their storage facility located inside a hospital and someone some unauthorized crazy person was able to walk into the storage room, open the special cryogenic freezer, pick up several embryos out of that freezer and drop them all over the floor (because the severe cold burned their hands so as a reflex they dropped them). So the embryos died. The case doesn't go into more of those facts like why were the door and freezer unlocked, who was this nut job, why did they do it, etc.

The families want to collect punitive damages under the Alabama Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, which is why they argued the embryos were children and not property. Hospital and Fertility Clinic argued that there an exception to this act because these embryos were not inside a uterus, but plaintiffs argued that would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment [b](I think this point is key)[/b]. I wouldn't be surprised to see that argued in the future. The court stated it didn't keep to decide that part because "unborn children are children under the Act, without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics;" and because of that simple ruling it won't decide any of the other parts, case over.

Here is a link to the decision. https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/c93db586-ec08-4f14-a6ba-a149967e68b0/docketentrydocuments/bb88f2bf-19ca-498f-9fe2-f754d36c0ff2[/quote]

So if SCOTUS takes this up does it open a giant barn door to fetal personhood nationwide? That’s an untenable mess for every American woman.[/quote]

It will be interesting because the Alabama Wrongful Death of a Minor Act does not define "child," so they needed to look to legislative intent, and well, the law was written in 1872, when embryos outside the womb was not even a whisper of a thought in the most creative sci-fi author's brain. So, it literally could not have intended to cover this situation. So we shall see how this gets interpreted by this Court and their alleged views of construction. There is a lot of judicial contortion in this opinion already.[/quote]

Read the decision. It discusses this. There is well established case law that unborn children fall under this act and that Alabama recognizes life beginning at conception, so that embryos are children. I believe it cites cases starting in 2011. This was not the issue for this current case. The issue was did the law have any "unwritten exception" for embryos that were not in a womb/outside a uterus such as the ones being stored. Defendants argued there was an unwritten exception, Plaintiffs argued there isn't one. Court agreed with Plaintiffs and stated in their decision that for them it was pretty open and shut.
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