The 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade has led to continuous attacks on women’s reproductive rights, with 14 states prohibiting abortion entirely and some carrying civil/criminal penalties since then, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. 

Most recently, the Alabama Supreme Court ruling regarding the 2020 mishandling of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Mobile Infirmary Association has set a dangerous precedent for some couple demographics and medical facilities providing IVF treatments.

The decision to rule in-vitro fertilized embryos as “children” is a drastic overreach by the Alabama Supreme Court, a gross encroachment on the liberties of parents already strained with the realities of infertility. By criminalizing any negative outcomes in the IVF treatment process, medical facilities are incentivized to halt this form of treatment to avoid penalization by the state, and this is exactly what has happened since the ruling.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, Mobile Infirmary and Alabama Fertility Specialists have hesitantly suspended IVF treatments in light of the unjustified Court ruling, an outcome that is frustrating and one that should have never come to fruition. 

With an already sub-50% success rate per multiple studies, including those published by the University of Pennsylvania Health System and the National Institutes of Health, IVF will inevitably face failure in its implementation. With medical professionals at the forefront of this revolutionizing technique, they will also be the first under the criminal spotlight when an embryo becomes unviable throughout the complex and unpredictable IVF treatment.

The Alabama Supreme Court is composed entirely of white Republicans, including Sarah Hicks Stewart. How is Stewart, a woman herself, to sit behind closed doors and essentially rule against women who cannot conceive children through normal means? How is it that a room of men has the discretion to criminalize this form of gynecological treatment when it goes awry, not knowing that the treatment is not guaranteed to work less than half the time? Of the nine judges within the Alabama Supreme Court, only one had a feasible input, as they were the only officials to dissent against the decision.

Associate Justice Gregory Cooks was the lone judge to dissent against his radical counterparts, stating that the Court was not the ultimate decider of who falls into the definition of a “person” under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. Crooks himself thought the decision would have “devastating consequences for Alabamians,” but the severity of the ruling does not stop at the Alabamian border, as other states with equally nonsensical judges may begin to implement their versions of the IVF ruling.

This legislative rip effect occurred with the overruling of Roe v. Wade, and if other states somehow rationalize this Alabama ruling as a “great” idea to “save the children,” it would spell out great trouble for the future of reproductive health and rights. Why are these government entities prioritizing petri dishes of cells over individuals who make this treatment possible, the professionals who are quite literally saving the embryos to become children and couples from the world of pain that comes with being unable to have a family?

The pounce Alabama took on classifying embryos as a “person” shows the extent these judges are willing to take on an unborn fetus while turning the cheek on problems concurrently happening in their state. The Alabama Department of Public Health labels the state as the “fifth poorest state in the nation,” with “17% of adults and 23% of children (1 out of 4) facing food insecurity.” 

Save the children by focusing on those struggling to find a nutritious meal daily or those who live in a state devastated by a suffering economy, not the collection of cells left in a culture system in a laboratory. When these embryos do finally become children through IVF, who is to say these judges will care afterward? Will they visit them at their doorstep after years of development or mail a postcard every holiday season? Given the little action taken to protect America’s most vulnerable, I would not bet my good hand on it. 

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