Alabama ruling that embryos are "children"

[Samsond]

Anyone else really scared about the direction the US is going with these rulings? Alabama has already ruled against abortion for any reason whatsoever. Now all IVF in the state has had to be halted as a court has ruled that embryos are "children". I just can't understand what's going to happen there. It feels they're getting more and more like a religious fundamentalist state. Are they heading the way of somewhere like Iran? It's insane.

I admit I'm completely in the dark about this option. But I am intrigued to know how these couples privately store and transfer said embryos without the help of a clinic???

according to the online dictionary a "being" is defined as

"the nature or essence of a person"

not sure a bundle of cells equates to that?
Embryos begin to develop cardiac tissue around 5-6 weeks of pregnancy
The heart is fully developed by the 10th week

I have embryos in storage but I do not consider them to be children.
I have had embryos transferred which have not gone on to be viable pregnancies. It is sad in that I wonder what they could have become - but it takes around 9 months to grow a little person/child

How will an individual care for an embryo without the use of a clinic. without an incubator or a freezer the embryos will die within about 12 hours. and you can't just put them in your home freezer. these are industrial freezers using liquid nitrogen. I don't understand what point you're making is here

You also need specialist equipment to insert the egg. it's not like sperm where you can effectively use a turkey baster. it needs to go up into the uterus. it can't travel from the vagina to the uterus by itself.

...because some of us give a shit about women, even American women, having access to basic reproductive healthcare and control over their own bodies?

Surely all this does is bring the IVF rules in line with their (ridiculous) abortion rules. If a woman is not allowed to eject (for want of a better word) an embryo from her own body without being accused of murder why should a clinic be able to dispose of them?

The whole thing is bonkers, but at least they are being consistent in their madness.

I'm not in Alabama but in the US. It's very scary. Abortion rights are constantly at risk. My sister had a pregnancy with a baby that's had zero chance to live. Zero. She found out late in pregnancy. She had to have a late term Abortion and had to fight to get her insurance to pay for it. Insurance excuse was my sister's life was not in danger.

A lot of states are really desperate to control and monitor peoples social media use to see if they are googling or posting the wrong things, like details of abortion or contraception clinics

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/18/human-rights-crisis-abortion-united-states-after-dobbs

This is where knowing what a women is takes you, it seems.

I would have said the same about them banning abortion a few years ago 😬

They haven't banned IVF or anything like that, this case has arisen from an incident where (according to the BBC) a patient "wandered in" to an area they shouldn't have and accidentally destroyed some embryos. So IVF providers are worried about the consequences of making mistakes that result in the destruction of an embryo because it may be treated the same as the destruction of a child after they are born.

In this case, all that needed to happen would be for providers to have appropriate security and checks in place to prevent someone having the opportunity to accidentally destroy embryos.

To be honest, I can't get too worked up about embryos being treated as children. If you accept there needs to be a ban on abortion at a certain point, be it 20 weeks or 30 weeks or whenever, you are accepting there needs to be a defined line where a pregnancy changes from "not human" to "now human". To me, the idea that a fertilised egg is the cut-off point is no more nonsensical than saying 20 weeks or whatever is.

I'm very pro-abortion by the way, I'm not some pro-lifer. I'd like to see abortions be freely available to anyone who wants one for any reason at any point in a pregnancy, in some cases even after birth. My point is if you accept a cut-off based on one timeframe you also need to accept other people might think a different timeframe is more appropriate.

But the 20 weeks is based on science and viability outside the womb. Pregnancy is a process.

Surely if someone has frozen embyros and these are now considered to be life, they can put them on their tax return, those on foodstamps etc should be entitled to put them on any claim.

It's worse than all of that - think about it, a miscarriage is effectively involuntary manslaughter under this law. A second miscarriage, where the chances are higher because of the first, could even be considered negligent homicide.

The US has been a religious state for decades; you can't hold any major office without professing your allegiance to the country's chosen religion. While it's not a specific rule, it's effectively impossible to be elected.

This kind of bullshit is just the natural consequence of that, and it's nowhere near the endgame.

The transfer process is carried out by some clinics depending on the country and clinics in the UK will transfer the embryos to clinics that do so, even abroad. The costs of doing so is covered by the recipients and/or agencies/charities. It’s just that the clinics won’t consider older mothers or heavier mothers for example for their own donation processes.

They are only living if implanted in the womb.

See my reply above.

Couples don't discard them easily. Maybe you should go on IVF groups and see how upset couples are when they have to let them go. It is a hard decision for most.

If the state wants to preserve embryos they should absolutely pay for this IMO.

As I told the PP my issue is not with couples or infertile women it’s with clinics who don’t do enough to facilitate adoption or encourage donation for scientific research.

My main issue is that clinics are businesses with the primary objective of making a profit and that often conflicts with the deeply emotional motivations of the patients they treat.

"I'm very pro-abortion by the way, I'm not some pro-lifer. I'd like to see abortions be freely available to anyone who wants one for any reason at any point in a pregnancy, in some cases even after birth. My point is if you accept a cut-off based on one timeframe you also need to accept other people might think a different timeframe is more appropriate."

Woah! After birth? WTF? I am very pro choice. I've even personally had an abortion (at around 12 weeks) but once the baby is born it's just that - a baby. You can't possibly mean you think it's ok to "abort" a baby???

How on earth would someone have an abortion after birth? There’s nothing to abort.

Unless you’re talking about euthanasia for very sick newborns? I can’t imagine anybody would advocate for infanticide as a continuation of abortion rights. Once a baby is born it’s an independent person with all the associated rights.

Some people are so blinded by ideology that they will excuse the vilest of actions.

And, largely-speaking, the people making these decisions based on their ideology will never be affected by them - it's mostly older men and women.

@Borntrippy Sounds like you should explore other avenues than IVF if you struggle with the disposing of embryos. I had 18 collected and only four managed to get to day five as they weren't viable. I imagine you might struggle with the decisions clinics take deciding on viable embryos.

I personally wouldn’t have an issue with discarding “unviable” embryos as their chances of making it through pregnancy would be very small. I also wouldn’t have an issue with “donating to science” if there was more transparency about what science this would be. Stem cell treatment to potentially save lives? No hesitation. Although adoption would of course be my first choice.