My home state of Alabama consistently ranks in the bottom 10 for the health and welfare of its children. It has among the highest rates of infant and child mortality in the country. Its public schools are poorly funded; its options for high-quality child care are scant and expensive; its attention to environmental hazards such as water and air quality barely adheres to minimal federal standards — in upscale neighborhoods. There is less attention to healthy air and drinking water in poor neighborhoods.
But this state’s ruling jurists are not so concerned about children already living among us — the food they eat or the water they drink. They’re not troubled about the medical care many will not receive.
Instead, the Alabama Supreme Court has come to the rescue of so-called unborn children, with a perverse ruling that declares frozen embryos are children with the full rights of any human being. The court uses an 1872 state law to undergird its decision, and its reasoning seems to hail from some centuries before that.
Undeterred by the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom from religion, and unmoored from long-standing legal precepts, Chief Justice Tom Parker quotes liberally from the Bible and other religious texts to support his views. Quoting a 17th-century Christian commentator, Parker writes, “(T)he chief excellence and prerogative of created man is in the image of his Creator. For while God has impressed as it were a vestige of himself upon all the rest of the creatures … .”
This absurd ruling has the value of not pretending to be anything other than what it is: a dictate from reactionary theocrats who care nothing for religious liberty or democratic freedoms — no matter how frequently the word “freedom” is used on the right. These Bible-thumpers want to force every American to live according to their antediluvian standards.
There is certainly no scientific standard at work here. Most scientists — indeed, most people — don’t consider any embryo, which is simply an egg fertilized by sperm, to be a person. It’s not even a fetus. It’s the size of a pinhead. According to researchers, 10%-40% of embryos are lost before they are implanted in the womb in natural conception. That’s how nature works.
When couples (or singles) employ IVF, they usually freeze several embryos because of the rate of failure. But those who enjoy the success of one or two babies often don’t want more. Are they to be forced to pay to keep the embryos frozen?
I have nothing but compassion for those trying desperately to conceive through IVF, spending thousands of dollars, hoping against hope for an actual baby.
As Megan Legerski, a Tuscaloosa, Alabama, woman undergoing IVF, told The New York Times, she has miscarried but has three embryos left and will try again.
“Having three embryos in the freezer is not the same to me as having one that implants and becomes a pregnancy, and it’s not the same as having a child. We have three embryos. We don’t have three children.”
Many Alabama women and their partners are now scrambling to figure out whether to transfer their embryos to a state where the judicial system has not gone mad. Dr. Paula Amato, the president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, predicts that “modern fertility care will be unavailable to the people of Alabama.” Indeed, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System, the most prestigious provider in the state, has paused its IVF treatment while it tries to figure a way through the court’s legal mess.
As for Alabama’s already-born poor children, those who have had the temerity to show up outside the womb, they will continue to be treated as an inconvenience by the state’s political apparatus. They will continue to attend dysfunctional schools, live in poor housing and receive substandard medical care. Gov. Kay Ivey is among the nation’s 14 right-wing governors who have refused federal funding for extra grocery money for less affluent families during the summer months. Let them eat … well, whatever.
If you see no hint of Christian compassion here, that’s because there isn’t any, regardless of Justice Parker’s screed. This is about a theocracy demanding control — nothing more, nothing less.
Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.
