Is a Frozen Embryo Really a Child?

A Court case in Alabama could mean trouble for Republicans.

I always thought a child was someone whose hand you held on a trip to the zoo. Or on his first day at school. Now the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos in test tubes are also children.

It is the first known case in U.S. history where a court has ruled that frozen embryos are human beings.

The Court ruled in a wrongful death case brought by several couples whose embryos were accidentally destroyed when they were dropped on the floor at a fertility clinic.

As the New York Times reports, “Referencing antiabortion language in the state constitution, the judges’ majority opinion said that an 1872 statute allowing parents to sue over the wrongful death of a minor child applies to ‘unborn children,’ with no exception for ‘extrauterine children.’”

And in words that sounded like they came from an Alabama church on a Sunday morning, Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote that, “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”

He went on to say that, “Carving out an exception for the people in this case, small as they were, would be unacceptable to the People of this State, who have required us to treat every human being in accordance with the fear of a holy God who made them in His image.”

Yes, for some it’s a moral issue, steeped in religion — but anything even vaguely tied to abortion is also a political issue, one that Democrats have used in recent elections to bludgeon Republicans — with success.