Deviled Eggs
The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that embryos are children. If you destroy a human embryo, you’ve murdered a child.
Now the Alabama governor has signed a bill into law protecting In Vitro Fertilization—or IVF— clinics from being sued for potential mishaps during IVF procedures. Sounds to me like the law is saying, as long as you are a corporate entity, you can get away with murder.
Further, the bill states “manufacturers of goods used to facilitate the in vitro process” or the “transport of stored embryos” will also enjoy immunity from criminal liability regarding human embryos.
I feel relief for the Alabama women invested in IVF who were thrust into limbo by the “embryos are children” decision. The closing of IVF clinics (to avoid potential lawsuits) must have been devastating. But this new legal protection for the IVF providers—and the businesses that support them—gives these entities something of a superpower: They’ll be insulated from malpractice claims. This might not bode well for women using IVF services.
I don’t know. Corporations are people. Fertilized eggs living in freezers are people. Women are petri dishes.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruling was the first time I’d heard of an embryo outside the womb having potentially more rights than a living breathing woman who doesn’t have to be kept in a freezer. I’m well aware that prior to Roe v. Wade and following the Dobbs decision, a baby in the belly could easily trump a mother’s standing as a human being with legal rights. But I didn’t know “fetal personhood” bills—bills that would define personhood as beginning at fertilization—have been introduced in 15 states. And three states, in addition to Alabama, already have fetal personhood laws: Missouri, Georgia, and Arizona—although the Arizona law is currently being challenged.
And the web of law gets more and more tangled. NBC News tells me there’s a state bill in Kansas that would make it legal for pregnant people to claim child support for their unborn children at any point after conception. So, if IVF embryos are people too, child support might be needed for their upkeep in the freezer. (And you can never start a college fund too early.) Are frozen children tax deductible as dependents? And if they can’t be destroyed, might a parent be obligated to support unused embryo dependents indefinitely because they will never reach the age of majority? Or are 18-year-old embryos on their own?
Of course, none of this really affects me greatly. I’m an old woman who worries more about aches and pains that land me in physical therapy, clinging to a bottle of ibuprofen. On a whim, I looked up whether or not a pregnant woman can take ibuprofen. The NIH says ibuprofen is not recommended after the 20th week of pregnancy, due to potential ill-effects on the fetal kidney. The website medicineinpregnancy.org claims the cutoff is 30 weeks. The rules are fluid, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that if a woman makes the wrong decision, she could be held criminally liable.
Ultimately, the devil is in the details. All women of child-bearing age should register themselves as corporations—in the business of producing eggs. Only then will they become people, and enjoy the autonomy afforded human beings, rather than be relegated, basically, to the status of an inanimate incubator.
I can’t wait for the repercussions when sperm banks are said to house “children.” Donors might suddenly be required to pay child support.
And here’s food for thought: The state of Nevada has a female dominated legislature. How would Nevada’s male legislators react to a bill that declares spilling seed an act of murder?