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Alabama’s largest hospital says it is halting IVF treatments in wake of court ruling
The following is from NPR: I am not expressing my opinion on this yet.“This case was brought before the state Supreme Court by three couples in Alabama who had frozen embryos being stored at a facility in Mobile. They had used IVF, or in vitro fertilization, to create embryos that were then frozen for them to be able to use at a later date. That’s standard procedure in IVF clinics in the United States, where clinics prefer harvesting as many eggs at a time in order to increase the odds of getting even one egg that is healthy enough to be fertilized and put back into a woman’s uterus.
What went wrong in this case pertains to the security of the hospital that was storing the frozen embryos. A random patient somehow gained access to the cryogenics lab, grabbed the embryos and dropped them, thus destroying them.
The three couples sued the hospital and a lower court ruled they were not entitled to damages because the frozen embryos were not people. The Alabama Supreme Court, however, ruled that they are indeed people, going so far as calling them “extrauterine children.”
Alabama’s Chief Justice, Tom Parker, wrote in the decision that destroying life would “incur the wrath of a holy God.” Of nine state Supreme Court Justices, only one disagreed.
This case is not likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court because this was the state’s Supreme Court ruling based on a state law.
The dominoes are beginning to fall in Alabama where a recent state supreme court ruling grants fertilized eggs the same rights as children. The state of Alabama’s largest hospital is now pausing a major procedure used in helping women get pregnant.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital, or UAB, has announced doctors there will not be doing any more IVF, or in vitro fertilization treatments.
The recent state supreme court ruling leaves thousands of couples who need help getting pregnant left wondering where they will turn for help building a family. Not only those who use UAB, but for others who wait to see if their local clinic will do the same.
Residents of Alabama and the rest of the country may be shocked by the state’s Supreme Court ruling but for many, this was the natural progression for the conservative southern state that in 2022 banned all abortions regardless of cases of incest and rape.
“I was not surprised,” said Jill Lens, a professor of law at the University of Arkansas and an expert in reproductive rights. “Alabama Supreme court has for a long time, enthusiastically applied wrongful death law to pregnancy losses and [if] it’s a person the second it’s in the womb – if it’s a person, it’s a person. I’m not sure why the location in a freezer would matter.”
In other words, anyone who’s been following Alabama’s abortion debate should have seen it coming in a state where prosecutors have arrested pregnant women for engaging in behaviors like taking drugs that could be harmful to a fetus. Alabama outlaws all abortions, making no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
While many other states have passed similar legislation, no other state has defined life as beginning at conception, which is essentially what this court ruling does.”
It involves a poorly drafted statute that will be easy to change. The people who drafted it did not think about IVF.
The state court could have interpreted the statute as intended (similar to how the Supreme Court “saved” Obama care by correcting a drafting error that misplaced a “not” that turned the statute into gibberish), but instead they interpreted the statute according to what it said.
There is no deep philosophical matter involved (other than that legislators should not pass laws with reading them closely).
America is a secular country? It was never secular, and as far back on the scale that you go the more it’s difficult to make the assertion. the only “secular” aspect of America are from the leftist pro-hamas protestors. That’s the scale.
This just shows – as much as most of us are annoyed by libs running the show – it will not be much better if the opposite side gets in control. The grass is not greener on the other side. We just need to learn how to live with all of that.
In 2022, the United States had a maternal mortality rate of approximately 24 deaths per 100,000 live births That same year, Alabama had a maternal mortality rate of approximately 37 deaths per 100,000 live births ….more than 50% higher than the national average. These vile excuses for legislators and judges who enact and adjudicate these laws obviously have a higher regard for protecting some frozen embryos than real women whose health care ranks 48 out of the 50 on just about all relevant metrics.
Jackk & others: The court didn’t ban IVF treatment.
The hospital just made a business decision not to do it in case of a recurrence of a once in a yovel event so as not to be financially liable.
I’m sure Planned Parenthood will step in and offer IVF treatment as their supposed goal is parenthood. 😀Last time i checked the countries that did the most harm to judaism and jews were germany and the soviet union, both extremely secular….i guess supporting heresy and toeva because “maybe” they’ll go after jews isn’t how history works… because our job is to singularly pursue kovod shomayim without cheshbonos. Come what may.
“separation of church and state” is not in the constitution or the 1st amendment. It’s in a letter written by one of the founding fathers.
The 1st amendment says that the government shall not establish a state religion. It doesn’t mean that religion plays no role in a broader sense of government, and it was not uncommon for the Bible to be quoted by judges in the 1800s.
jackk, that’s fantasy, there’s nothing secular about the united states, from its founding, to its laws, to its culture. What the leftist tell you about a so-called “separation” is misdefined by uneducated masses.
But you are telling me that Mexico is secular, which has a flag where the colors signify the “purity” of roman catholic church. Or France, whom I’ve always heard follows a catholic calendar? What’s next, Qatar?Mexico is indeed militantly secular. More so than France where Jewish schools get government funding. The government of Mexico regulates the curriculum even in religious schools.
The white in Mexico’s flag did indeed initially represent the Catholic faith. The Spanish had been burning Protestants and Jews at the stake until shortly before independence in 1821. But religion and state were separated in 1857 and that remains the case today. A Jewish woman is way ahead in the polls for the Presidential election later this year.
Church and State have been separate in the US since 1833.
Wrong about Germany. Then and now, churches receive government funding. One thing Hitler had to do was to assume effective control over religious institutions and the funding was a lever he used to achieve that.
Under the Alabama Court decision, IVF would be financially prohibitive if a woman had to pay for “perpetual storage” for any embryos that were not successfully implanted since destruction of a frozen embryo could be deemed as homicide. Likewise, a lab tech who accidentally dropped the container holding the embryo or who shut off the power supply to the cryogenic storage chamber would also be subject to an involuntary manslaughter charge.
Religion can play a role but it doesn’t mean that Judges can invoke THEIR OWN religious beliefs or interpretation of scripture to decide political or moral policy issues and impose their views on the rest of society.
Jack, no one banned ivf – that’s twisting the situation. A hospital acted out of fear.
Promoting policies which prohibit abortions definitely increases kovod shomayim. Turning a blind eye or even, chas veshalom, supporting the abortionists, is a massive chilul Hashem.
And yes, religious countries were bad to us too. Everyone has been bad to us. But the ones who killed 6 million – more than all of the pogroms put together – and the ones who shmadded millions of jews in Russia, were secularists. That needs to be stressed.
Can the embryo in question simply emigrate to a “free state ”
You would be able to assist it/him/her if you hold that it is better nt to be bornJack, you’re repeating the same statement about separation pf church and state. It is not in the constitution or the 1st amendment. It’s sole mention in old American literature was in a letter. In recent decades, an increasingly secular culture and judiciary have applied it so much that most people assume it’s a constitutional principle. It isn’t, and the founding fathers did not have the image of a government devoid of religious concepts and morals.
Before repeating yourself again, do a quick google search.
My point about germany and the soviet union is to answer your concerns that “if we let the religious people spread their religion they’ll go after us.” It’s not just religious people that go after us, but secularists too; we are historically more likely to be targeted by secular abortionists than we are conservative Christian republicans. Secularists both on the left (soviet union) and on the right (the nazis) were worse to us than all of roman catholic christiandom.
The government in no way limited ivf; that’s a hospital’s decision. Why are you sounding the alarm on ivf and ignoring the death of millions of babies?
> if we let the religious people spread their religion they’ll go after us.
I think you are both right. R Soloveichik asks why we have issur against avodah zorah in 10 comm, but not about atheism. He answers because there are no true atheists, they all end up believing in some type of AZ. Pretty much sure he was thinking of commies and nazis.
The Rav Baal Akedah interprets lo yihyeh lecha on money which he considers currently the greatest a’z.
Jefferson used the expression to build a wall for separation of church and state to explain the first amendment.
Jack, it doesn’t matter what separation of church and state means to me. The reality is that no one in America spoke of it to mean that American law is completely secular until atheism became popular in the 20th century. Schools had prayers, public places had biblical imagery, there were blue laws, and judges would sometimes quote the Bible (once even the gemara).
The first amendment doesn’t say that the country needs to be atheistic. It says that congress (not even the states…. that’s a separate issue; theoretically a state could be Christian, Muslim, etc..) shall not establish a national religion. The US cannot be a chrsitian country, but it can use christian principles, or other religious principles.
Again, the phrase “separation” was not ever once mentioned in the first amendment or tue constitution. Please do some cursory research and challenge the common perception that you heard in 5th grade civics class. It’s simply not true.
There is freedom of religion but not freedom from religion.
This argument whether original us position on religion and state rights or the current one is better is not a legal argument. US constitution consists of a combination of original rules AND means to change it
These rules were followed most of the time
So both are valid – as well as current Alabama legislation. If you don’t like it, move to MississippiBottom line, people like Jakkk, who label people fascists because they believe in the sanctity of life. They are more supportive of those who support abortion up to and even after birth. The support laws which forbid providing care to a baby who has survived an attempted abortion. They support euthanasia. You tell us who are the real fascists.
These radical liberals belive the only lives worth protesting for are those of murderers who have been sentenced to the death penalty. Or are terrorists killing Jews.
Sure these Christians ideas are beyond what the halacha is, but I would say that it is clearly way less so from the abortion celebrators and those who promote euthanasia. But Old King Obama wa in favor, so now its toiras lukshen mewashington.
If the only way to secure ivf was to enact laws which state that a person can murder someone else because they called them a racial epithet or used the wrong pronouns, would you still say we should support it?
It’s the same thing. For goyim, abortion is 100% murder that they are chayav misa for.
If you’re really concerned with being able to keep the mitzva of pru urvu, and you’re not motivated by political bias and “big orange man is bad,” then you’ll see that you can’t sacrifice one mitzva to do another. We cannot support goyim doing aveiros vis a vis the 7 mitzvos of bnei noach, as they are obligated to make courts which enforce the other 6(see minchas chinuch on parshas noach, i believe it’s there).
We say in davening every day that the world should be fixed bmalchus Shakai, in the kingship of Hashem, through the keeping of His laws. We cannot support someone He is against, whether that makes us theocrats or not – we have a higher authority to answer to, one who will not care what your political philosophies are, except for that which is either in sync with, or opposed to, His divine will.
Nisht,
Woke fascists like jackkk want to silence and cancel anyone who disagrees with their ultra-radical ideologies.
His posting that you should “go somewhere else” tells you he’s a weak snowflake who can’t bear to read anything that counters his vapid opinions and that you’re getting under his thin skin. Keep posting and don’t be intimidated!
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