Legal groups representing defendants in Alabama’s Supreme Court decision that frozen embryos are children have submitted a request for the case to be reheard.
The Centre for Reproductive Medicine and the Mobile Infirmary have filed an operation and brief with the Alabama Supreme Court to rehear an action. The Medical Federation of the State of Alabama and the Alabama Hospital Association also supported the request.
Reconsideration is not usually granted, but the decision has caused controversy. As IVF facilities started to halt certain procedures, legislators rushed to enact laws safeguarding the practice.
Reproductive rights activists and medical professionals expressed anxiety over the decision, stating that it will increase IVF facilities’ liability costs and make it harder for infertile parents to conceive.
According to an Insider who spoke in an interview, the organisation is requesting that the court reexamine its decision. The justices may need more than six weeks to decide whether to approve the motion to rehear the case after reviewing the papers.
According to the court source, the groups requested a rehearing on the last day of their 14-day window after the court’s decision.
How was the decision made ?
Following two lawsuits from three sets of parents who had IVF treatments to conceive their children but decided to freeze the leftover embryos, a precedent-setting decision was reached.
In December 2020, a patient at a Mobile hospital entered a reproductive clinic through an unsecured doorway, allegedly taking multiple embryos out of a cryogenic nursery, dropping them on the floor, and freezing-burning his fingers due to the frigid temperatures.
The trial court dismissed the parents’ wrongful death lawsuit, stating that the in vitro embryos involved did not fit the definition of a person or child. The state Supreme Court, however, ruled that the Wrongful Death of a Minor statute covers extrauterine children, those outside a biological uterus at the time of death.
2018 saw the passage of a significant constitutional amendment in Alabama, which stated that “the state’s public policy is to recognise and support the sacredness of life during pregnancy and the liberties of unborn children.”
The Alabama Supreme Court cited the 2018 vote to recognise embryos as people under state law, citing the amendment’s ability to provide for a more wide interpretation of the relevant statute even though it was established with the intention of restricting abortions.
The verdict states, “Coming to the side of such as rather than eliminating, kids who have not yet been born, when it pertains to the unlawful death of a Minor Act.”
Due to the court’s ruling, many families were put in limbo and Alabama’s IVF facilities were forced to halt portions of their operations.
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a popular treatment for infertility in the US, where an egg is extracted, fertilised with sperm in a lab, and placed into the patient’s uterus. The embryos can be frozen for later use or genetic testing.
The Alabama Legislature and Senate both passed measures on Thursday that seek to safeguard in vitro fertilisation as part of a rush by politicians to react to the state’s Supreme Court’s decision.
