The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos are “children” in a “wrongful death” case.

The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos are children under state law and are subject to the wrongful death statute. CBS News mentionted.

This comes after a lawsuit was filed by in vitro fertilization (IVF) patients whose frozen embryos were destroyed in December 2020 when a patient dropped them on the ground.

The plaintiffs had filed two lawsuits against the Center for Reproductive Medicine, alleging that it violated Alabama’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor” law that applies to unborn children and alleged negligence.

They also sought damages, but the negligence claims were only valid if Alabama courts or the United States Supreme Court ruled that the frozen embryos were not children.

The trial court dismissed the lawsuits on the defendant’s motion, stating that a frozen fetus does not fit the “definition of “human being” or “child.”

The court also ruled that the plaintiffs could not seek damages for loss of life and emotional harm, citing Alabama legal standards.

In its decision, the Alabama Supreme Court did not address the question of whether “ectopic children” should be treated as human beings, but found that state law did not specify what condition an unborn child should be in.

“The relevant statutory text is clear: the wrongful death of a minor applies in person to all unborn children, without limitation,” the court’s decision states.

The court held that there is no unwritten exception to the law that applies to “unborn children who are not physically ‘in utero’ — that is — at the time they are killed.”

The defendants argued that treating the frozen embryos as children would lead to increased costs and difficulties in preserving the embryos, potentially making IVF more expensive.

“While we appreciate the defendants’ concerns, these types of policy-focused arguments belong to the Legislature, not this Court,” the ruling said.

The decision was issued by Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell, with seven of the other eight justices concurring.