For those of you who have never spent much time reading evangelical Christian diatribes or recently refreshed your knowledge of the more obscure books of the Judeo-Christian Bible, the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision in connection with human embryo rights will be a difficult read. In their eight to one decision, these six learned men and two learned women stated quite simply that a collection of a few human cells resulting from a fertilized human egg or even the fertilized egg alone must be accorded the rights and protection mandated for children. They insist that human embryos are “unborn children” and, under the law, must be viewed and treated according to the laws established for “born children.” Fortunately for those of us unfamiliar with the laws of Alabama, these Justices avoided relying exclusively on legal arguments. Unfortunately, they justified most of their opinions on religious grounds…their own religious grounds.
The fundamental question brought to the Justices was whether or not a fertilized human egg was a person, a potential person, a set of instructions for creating a potential person, or something even more remote from what we customarily regard as ‘humanity.’ In the cases reviewed by the Justices, eggs had been collected from the ovaries of women who wanted to have children, and these microscopic single cells were inseminated [fertilized] outside the female donors’ bodies using male donor sperm cells. The process is called ‘in vitro’ fertilization because the process was routinely performed in a glass dish [in vitro being the Latin for ‘in glass’].
To assure success with at least one fertilized egg, as many as a dozen eggs will be collected from the donor’s ovary and fertilized. A few of the fertilized eggs are placed in the uterus [womb] of the woman hoping to get pregnant, and those that are not immediately implanted are frozen to keep them viable. These fertilized eggs or the multicellular clusters that they give rise to are referred to as embryos, although they have none of the features, such as a heart, liver, kidneys or nervous system, usually required before the term ‘embryo’ is justified. The rate of failure after implantation in the uterus is high. Consequently, several eggs are usually fertilized at one time, and those not used are kept in cold storage for future efforts to achieve a pregnancy.
The case the Alabama Supreme Court reviewed involved charges brought by customers of an in vitro fertilization clinic whose embryos were destroyed when an intruder gained access to a freezer that held the embryos, lifted the tubes holding the microscopic embryos out of the coolant, and dropped the tubes. The claims brought against the facility storing the embryos included “wrongful death of a minor.” Judge Jill Parrish Phillips of an Alabama Circuit Court dismissed the wrongful death claim, given that no “minor” had died in this laboratory accident. Those eager to test the Alabama Supreme Court’s views on frozen embryos filed an appeal and got the decision they had every right to expect from this profoundly anti-abortion, anti-reproductive rights, learned body.
Over the centuries, citizens, legislators, and courts in Alabama have routinely invoked their religious beliefs to justify peculiar behavior. The most egregious instance was their defense of slavery: they insisted that it was God’s will that black people be the property of white people. Old habits die hard. Once again, the arbiters of justice in Alabama insist that they know what God wants and must adhere to His/Her directions as revealed in their versions of the JudeoChristian Bible. This is why the decision by the Alabama Supreme Court reads more like the transcript of a religious revival meeting than the secular musings of constitutional scholars. They make no secret of their inspiration or their agenda when they write, “We believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness. It is as if the People of Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet Jeremiah and applied it to every unborn person in this state: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I sanctified you.’” Really? Really!
Given that every fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus, whether in or outside of a woman’s body is defined as a ‘child’ by this august body, the Court in effect outlawed all abortions in Alabama and, somewhat ironically, made it virtually impossible for those wanting to have children to take advantage of in vitro fertilization. Because of this ruling, embryos have equal standing under the law as children. They cannot be frozen, used for medical research, be subjected to genetic studies without their informed consent, etc.
Theoretically, they can be taken as dependents for tax purposes even before they are born. Pregnant women can justify driving in HOV [high occupancy vehicle] lanes by virtue of the embryo or fetus or even the fertilized egg they carry. Pregnant women can be charged with endangering the welfare of a minor if they have a beer, exceed the speed limit, or have sexual intercourse with a partner whose medical history is questionable. If they make any efforts to get an abortion, whether it is on day one or week twenty of their pregnancy, they can be charged with attempted murder. If they use an IUD [intrauterine device] or take a morning after pill, both of which interfere with the implantation in the uterus of a fertilized egg or few days old embryo, they can be charged with murder. Obviously, rape, incest, and the life of the mother are not substantial defenses, given the innocence of the egg/embryo/fetus when weighed against the inevitable ‘sinfulness’ of the mother.
The Alabama Court requires that all embryos already in “cryogenic nurseries [their term]” must be protected until they are implanted in a uterus and cannot be discarded or in some other manner “killed [their term]” or mistreated. The decision by this Court to require all fertilized eggs and embryos at any stage of development be treated as “children” has further eroded the choices available to women. Fertility clinics have ‘paused’ their services until this unworkable rule is reversed. And so the answer to the question, “Has the Alabama Supreme Court gone mad?’ is obviously, “Yes.” In their righteous zeal, these guardians of secular justice have traded in their black robes for priestly wardrobes and advised us that we are going to Hell, or at least to jail, if we do not embrace their religious views. Lord help us.
Dr. Lechtenberg is an Easton resident who graduated from Tufts University and Tufts Medical School in Massachusetts and subsequently trained at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. He worked as a neurologist at several New York Hospitals, including Kings County and The Long Island College Hospital, while maintaining a private practice, teaching at SUNY Downstate Medical School, and publishing 15 books on a variety of medical topics. He worked in drug development in the U.S., as well as in England, Germany, and France.
