On Feb 16, 2024, the Alabama Supreme ruled that embryos in petri dishes are "extrauterine children -- that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus" and are thus are afforded all the rights and protections granted to born minor children.

The ruling must be true, as it invoked "God" 41 times. Apparently 40 references to God would have been insufficient and 42 would have been overkill. 

On page 37, the ruling states that "God made every person in his image", consistent with Genesis scripture "God created mankind in his own image".  By transitive logic, then God must be the image of mankind.  And thanks to the Alabama Supreme Court, I now understand that God must have the appearance of embryos in a petri dish. Oh silly me, as a child I had seen him much more like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments movie.  Maybe both are true - like God is the most amazing shapeshifter of all time. 

And, if every child has a "soul", then what becomes of the soul of a destroyed embryo?  Do they torment in hell forever, as they have not been cleansed of original sin in the sacrament of baptism?  Are they condemned, as they have not accepted Jesus as their personal lord and savior?  Are they judged according to their deeds -- that is were they good or evil embryos in the few days before they were frozen?  Or are they lesser souls -- bound to wander aimlessly for eternity, not worthy of a judgment from an omniscient and omnipotent God?

Actually, none of this makes sense to me.  Please feel free to add your wisdom regarding the image of god, the plight of extrauterine embyonic souls, or anything else related to the ruling.

Andy, thank you for your comments, which more seriously think through the logistics of the IVF process.

In the court ruling, Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker writes, “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself... Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”

My earlier posting (and its attempt at humor) is intended to show the folly of foundationally relying on the religous musings of a priestly caste of a particular tribe 2500 years ago to form the basis of legal reasoning on a modern technology to assist infertile couples to have children.

In fact, the embryos for several couples were destroyed when a hospital patient entered an unlocked door to the room containing frozen embryos and accidentally dropped them on the floor.  The news must have been tragic to the couples for whom those embyos embodied their hopes for future offspring.  The lax security must have added to the despair. 

Ultimately, these acts were accidental, not malicious, and far from morally equivalent to the mass killing of minor children.  I would argue that the legal recourse for the loss of the embryos should rather be based upon legal precedence of incurred cost (for the embryos in this case), plus pain and suffering (for which there is a wide latitude in awards). 

The message for the IVF industry would have been to beef up protocols and security to prevent future occurrences of similar tragedies.  With the actual AL Supreme Court ruling, the message to the IVF industry is that we cannot take the legal and financial risk to operate in Alabama, thus depriving Alabama couples the benefit of in-state IVF care.

The legislature is trying to address to these legal concerns, but it is not clear if any law passed by the legislature will overule the AL Supreme Court's ruling that they claim is based upon both the US and the AL constitutions.  And ultimately, it is up to the same AL Supreme Court to make that decision.

Are you looking for logic in the Supreme Court regarding this? Remember they are only human as well as over-represented by the right wing political group. What can we use to really dig down into the ethics of what is human enough to have a right to life that is acceptable to the culture at large? Viability is messy and changes with technology, but seems to be the best option we have. There are problems with viability - It does not address the issue of a non-viable newborn, or children (or anyone really) with a terminal condition, especially if they are suffering. Cultural traditions slides really close to God. "What God said" (which God, btw) is logically absurd but if enough judges believe it it may result in legislation that we are stuck with. Decisions made by a pregnant person and her doctor has the advantage of individual liberty, and the doctor is bound by a code of ethics, so while to many of us the right to choose seems obvious, we cannot discount that there are complicating factors that make this issue gray enough to keep it in the courts for years.