According to the Supreme Court of Alabama, as of February 16th Frozen Embryos are now “human children”. [You can read about the case here.] They have the same rights as a walking breathing talking 10-year-old child who, by the way, would be forced to carry a fetus to term, a child giving birth to a child, if many of the right-wing religious conservatives in this country had their way. Of course, this ruling is absurd. Chief Justice Tom Parker, who wrote the majority decision, had no problem blurring the separation of ‘Church and State’ which is sacrosanct to the US Constitution, with his own words, “theologically based view of the sanctity of life” and that “life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.” This view is based on religious beliefs, not interpretation of the law. [To read the details about this ruling and about Alabama’s hasty reaction to the backlash, passing a law to protect the rights of women to continue IFV treatments in the state, click here.]
Wow! That is scary stuff. Those who side with this ruling and many others who would impose their personal religious beliefs onto everyone in this country, if they could, are not much different than the Taliban, forcing women to wear hijabs and forbidding female children from getting an education, because Allah demands it.
Here’s the facts: cryo-preserved fertilized eggs are tiny 8-cell specimens, invisible to the naked eye. In this doormat state there is no cell activity. No growth happening, although they are still capable of growth and life, all cell activity has been suspended. Under the right conditions, some of these frozen zygotes can be reanimated and be introduced into the uterus of a female human where they may possibly implant and grow into a viable fetus. And if all goes well that fetus will become a living breathing human being, outside its host’s body.
Now, about the estimated 600,000 frozen embryos stored at sub-zero temperatures in hospitals and fertility clinics throughout the US, 100% do not have a heart, a brain, a nervous system, and, of course, no face. And they have no gender. These supposedly mini humans, are like Schrodinger’s cat, they are neither and both. Each frozen zygote may be male or female, or may be neither or both at the same time. I’m not sure, but doesn’t that make all these thousands of tiny now “human children” in Alabama (not sure about the thousands of other frozen embryos in any of the other 49 states) Trans? And if so, are they already breaking some law in Alabama or committing some kind of sin against God per any number of the many Christian denominations who believe that Trans children are defying God and His natural laws, that they are a sin by their very existence, a sin because they do not identify as the ‘Sex assigned at their birth’? Oh, that’s right. These frozen mini-human children have never been born yet.
To sum up, how can these frozen fertilized eggs, waiting to possibly someday be used to help a real live human woman become a mother, have the same human rights as a living breathing human child? If what this court ruled takes hold and is enforced to its logical conclusion then maybe someone should file a suite to determine if these zygotes are breaking a law because they are non-binary. Afterall they do not have an assigned sex.
And as for the million dollar questions, “When does a pre-human become a person under the law?” and “Who gets to decide what they are and when?” All I know is, it’s not my job to decide. But per common sense and informed by science I believe this ruling is absurd and should not stand.
Logos 