Alabama Supreme Court declares frozen embryos are legally children

Copernicus said:

But not all philosophical issues are legal issues. That's the point. Courts can only rule on issues that the Constitution grants them authority to rule on, and that certainly is not the power to determine that individual human cells have thoughts, feelings, and experiences.



Absolutely not. That is a question that philosophers, not judges, are equipped to debate. Judges can only decide on whether the law grants an embryo a civil right. The Alabama Supreme Court has now declared that it does, but there are strong questions about whether the federal Constitution grants state legislatures the power to grant a brainless cell or cluster of cells a legal right. The Alabama decision appears to grant them all the civil rights that babies acquire at birth, but not before.



The legal issues may be complicated, but our society has agreed that courts are limited in their power to resolve philosophical debates. They have to have a legal basis to do so. That is actually what the debate is over--whether they have the power to grant an embryo full civil rights.



Well, you certainly take a broad perspective on the nature of life. I wouldn't try to back this claim up in court, if I were you. Would you consider it murder to smash a rock? I would like to see a lawyer defend the injuries suffered by a pile of pebbles.

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I would just query this with:

- Where do rights come from in the first place?
- Who decides we have rights and why?
- What is a right?
etc.

It is still all philosophical at its base. We can pretend politics isn't philosophy but it is. Rights of any kind are a philosophical legal fiction. So debating them is in many ways debating whether Ron or Harry is the better wizard.

I wouldn't defend it. Everyone has to draw a line somewhere; for the same reason vegans eat plants.

fantome profane said:

It is inanimate. It shows no signs of life. It does not move, it does not eat, it does not communicate etc. I can't help you if that sounds absurd, but it is reality.

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And how many inanimate objects come to life when unfrozen and grow into something else, or die?

Rival said:

And how many inanimate objects come to life when unfrozen and grow into something else?

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Just asking that question concedes my point. If it needs to "come to" means that it is "not now".

But to answer the question, some, I don't have a list handy.

But it takes a lot more than just unfreezing it to cause it to "come to" life.

fantome profane said:

Just asking that question concedes my point. If it needs to "come to" means that it is "not now".

But to answer the question, some, I don't have a list handy.

But it takes a lot more than just unfreezing it to cause it to "come to" life.

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Yes, there are requirements, that's why I included 'or die'.

But a table will never grow into a wardrobe no matter what you do.

Nor can a table die.

No inanimate object will, because they don't grow and change in that way.

The embryo is alive, it's just frozen. That doesn't mean it's not alive.

Rival said:

Err, women who have miscarriages often do do these kinds of things. They build shrines in their would-be bedrooms and recall the anniversary of when the child was meant to be born. There are millions of women who do this just to be able to deal with it.

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It's true that women do as you describe from time to time; but people build shrines for dead pets and other things that effect them deeply like that. That's not what I'm referring to

What I'm referring to is that we, as a culture, do not do these things. I've never even heard of a memorial service, with family, friends, and members of the community held for an embryo. Have you?

Rival said:

Censuses do include pregnant women.

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That's not what I was referring to. What I said was that embryos are not counted as people ina census. Pregnant mothers still count as one person, not two. The fact they are pregnant is relevant for potential population projection, but that's not the same as being counted as a whole human being

Rival said:

Some pregnant women do refer to their unborn as part of their children.

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I have yet to see that, though I guess I wouldn't find that too surprising. Still, again, culturally we do not do this as a society

Rival said:

I'm not sure who you've been around but what you've written is not at all uncommon. Women rub and hold their children while they're in the womb. They treat the baby as it is, a baby. They do this pretty much on learning they're pregnant.

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Most women do, sure. People do what they can to realize their hopes and dreams, and if they want to have children, that certainly counts. Potential human isn't the same thing as actual, whole human being though - not that I, or greater society, actually recognizes

Rival said:

I wish there were more folks who shared my views on this forum, because the atmosphere here is suffocating.

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I'm with you, at least! I'm just at work.

Soandso said:

It's true that women do as you describe from time to time; but people build shrines for dead pets and other things that effect them deeply like that. That's not what I'm referring to

What I'm referring to is that we, as a culture, do not do these things. I've never even heard of a memorial service, with family, friends, and members of the community held for an embryo. Have you?



That's not what I was referring to. What I said was that embryos are not counted as people ina census. Pregnant mothers still count as one person, not two. The fact they are pregnant is relevant for potential population projection, but that's not the same as being counted as a whole human being



I have yet to see that, though I guess I wouldn't find that too surprising. Still, again, culturally we do not do this as a society



Most women do, sure. People do what they can to realize their hopes and dreams, and if they want to have children, that certainly counts. Potential human isn't the same thing as actual, whole human being though - not that I, or greater society, actually recognizes

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I have never known a woman who has miscarried whom didn't mourn their loss to some extent. There's a whole industry of stillbirth photography for grieving parents:

Also, many parents of miscarried children do have their own services or have them buried or cremated.

Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Unless you're really close to someone or it's an immediate relative, you're not likely to hear about these things as people don't tend to talk about such things. It's very painful and they, especially the mother, tend to feel like failures. I've seen marriages fall apart over miscarriages.

Rival said:

People pray outside of abortion clinics all the time, don't they?

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Which is rather ironic given the massacre of the first born in Egypt, the harrowing "happy is he who dashes your little ones on the rocks," amd especially considering their beliefs make their god into the most prolific abortion provider in history.
Especially ironic as these are mostly the same wankers who want to hack and slash and even end welfare programs to keep the fetus well and healthy once it's born.

tytlyf said:

Of course she does, she needs to appeal to conservatives for support

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She probably gets more money from democrats who just want to keep her in the race.

Saint Frankenstein said:

Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Unless you're really close to someone or it's an immediate relative, you're not likely to hear about these things as people don't tend to talk about such things. It's very painful and they, especially the mother, tend to feel like failures. I've seen marriages fall apart over miscarriages.

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Yeah, my best friend has had several miscarriages. Most of them emotionally didn't mess her up but some were medical traumas that nearly killed her. The stillbirth on her mom's couch though, that one did hit her very hard emotionally (and again physically as well) amd she did have a buriel for that one.

Rival said:

And how many inanimate objects come to life when unfrozen and grow into something else, or die?

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Inanimate objects don't come to life. Entities in the tree of life can become inanimate, or, to be precise, go into suspended animation.
Most "embryos" (fertilized eggs of any kind) can survive suspended animation, some animals can, most notable the Tardigrade - Wikipedia.
Suspended animation is a state between life and not life, as one criterion of life, an active metabolism, is stopped or slowed down extremely.

Heyo said:

Inanimate objects don't come to life. Entities in the tree of life can become inanimate, or, to be precise, go into suspended animation.
Most "embryos" (fertilized eggs of any kind) can survive suspended animation, some animals can, most notable the Tardigrade - Wikipedia.
Suspended animation is a state between life and not life, as one criterion of life, an active metabolism, is stopped or slowed down extremely.

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It is still a life though; it is just in suspended animation. I don't consider that not being alive.

Rival said:

I would just query this with:

- Where do rights come from in the first place?
- Who decides we have rights and why?
- What is a right?
etc.

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These are all good questions that have very clear answers. There was a time when you could get answers to them in a high school civics class, but I'm not sure that the schools are teaching civics anymore these days. The short answer is that civil society decides and defines what rights we have, because, in the absence of that society, there is no need for civil rights.

Rights are types of behavior that govern interactions between people. In the US, the Constitution defines what rights the government has to regulate human interactions, and there are even explicit prohibitions on limiting some rights--for example, freedom of religious belief. Every court in the land is required to operate within the limits of those restrictions, and courts do not actually have the right to make laws beyond what the legislatures have made. So a court cannot simply decide to give rocks, animals, or fetuses civil rights, and legislatures are limited in the basis for what kinds of laws they can pass. For example, they are specifically prohibited from basing laws on religious principles. That's one of the things that the First Amendment is about. (One Alabama justice actually invoked religion in his decision to grant embryos personhood.)

Rival said:

It is still all philosophical at its base. We can pretend politics isn't philosophy but it is. Rights of any kind are a philosophical legal fiction. So debating them is in many ways debating whether Ron or Harry is the better wizard.

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I am not arguing with you over whether legal philosophy is a thing. I very much agree that it is. What I am arguing is that not all philosophical disputes are legal disputes, so you should not confuse the two. For example, there is a legitimate question as to what legal personhood is. This web site elaborates on that: Cambridge Elements. Philosophy of Law: Legal Personhood

Now that web site is a long read, and I am not really expecting you to read it. Nor am I trying to give you a reading assignment, although you probably would be interested in the way it answers your questions about legal philosophy. They are very legitimate questions. I'm just trying to make the point that you are conflating an everyday understanding of what we mean by "personhood" and "human life" with the legal definitions of such expressions, which can be quite different.

Rival said:

I wouldn't defend it. Everyone has to draw a line somewhere; for the same reason vegans eat plants.

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Exactly. More importantly, courts do not have authority to grant civil rights to plants or human beings. They have the authority to interpret what the law says about such entities and whether the legislatures that pass laws on such things are within their authority as granted by constitutional law.

Rival said:

It is still a life though; it is just in suspended animation. I don't consider that not being alive.

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It's just as alive as Schrödinger's Cat. There is no other method to know if it will live on but to thaw it and implant it.

Rival said:

Well, what is it if it's not alive? It's not dead.

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In the same sense that an unfertilized egg cell is also alive and not dead.

Rival said:

What would be the use of freezing a dead embryo?

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The most common scenario:

A couple lucked out and got more viable blastocysts than could be implanted. The extra blastocysts are frozen in case either: 1) none of the first round blastocysts successfully implant, or 2) the couple wants more kids in future.

Another less common but still significant scenario:

A woman who wants kids finds out she has cancer. She knows that she wouldn't be able to do chemo while pregnant, and she also knows her chemo drugs could severely impact her fertility and render the eggs in her ovaries useless. So that she can still have kids, she has eggs retrieved and fertilized with her husband's sperm, then frozen for the day when she's done with chemo, her cancer's in remission, and she's healthy enough for pregnancy.

Rival said:

It's alive.

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Again: only in the same sense that an unfertilized egg cell is also alive and not dead.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

The most common scenario:

A couple lucked out and got more viable blastocysts than could be implanted. The extra blastocysts are frozen in case either: 1) none of the first round blastocysts successfully implant, or 2) the couple wants more kids in future.

Another less common but still significant scenario:

A woman who wants kids finds out she has cancer. She knows that she wouldn't be able to do chemo while pregnant, and she also knows her chemo drugs could severely impact her fertility and render the eggs in her ovaries useless. So that she can still have kids, she has eggs retrieved and fertilized with her husband's sperm, then frozen for the day when she's done with chemo, her cancer's in remission, and she's healthy enough for pregnancy.

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And the important thing to keep in mind as you read the above scenarios, is that under this ruling these things will not happen in Alabama. If they can get sued (or charged with manslaughter) for a broken test tube, IVF will be unavailable in Alabama or any other state with a similar ruling.

Women with fertility issues or health issues will be out of luck.

Rival said:

I wouldn't defend it. Everyone has to draw a line somewhere; for the same reason vegans eat plants.

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Vegans generally don't try to make meat illegal, though. They just choose not to have it themselves.

If you're only talking about your personal choice, then I agree: you don't have to defend it.

However, if you're calling for the denial of other people's rights, then I would say that you have an ethical duty to justify this.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Vegans generally don't try to make meat illegal, though. They just choose not to have it themselves.

If you're only talking about your personal choice, then I agree: you don't have to defend it.

However, if you're calling for the denial of other people's rights, then I would say that you have an ethical duty to justify this.

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What right?

You don't have the right to have children. There's no such thing.

Rival said:

What right?

You don't have the right to have children. There's no such thing.

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ImmortalFlame said:

Reproductive rights - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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This is healthcare, not a blanket right to have children. As I said, that doesn't exist. You can be refused IVF and you can be refused children to adopt. If you don't have children and can't have any, the state is under no obligation to give you any.