Alabama’s supreme court ruling that frozen embryos are ‘children’ is a chilling example of the Republican party’s extremism

In a case centering on wrongful-death claims for frozen embryos that were accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic, the Alabama supreme court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos are “children” under state law.

As a result, several Alabama in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics are ceasing services, afraid to store or destroy any embryos.

The underlying issue is whether government can interfere in the most intimate aspects of people’s lives – not only barring people from obtaining IVF services but also forbidding them from entering into gay marriage, utilizing contraception, having out-of-wedlock births, ending their pregnancies, changing their genders, checking out whatever books they want from the library, and worshipping God in whatever way they wish (or not worshipping at all).

All these private freedoms are under increasing assault from Republican legislators and judges who want to impose their own morality on everyone else. Republicans are increasingly at war with America’s basic separation of church and state.

  • squiblet
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    3510 months ago

    When was the last time people were in doubt about that? Conservatives have been trying to pass laws that affect everyone based on their confused religious moralism for decades. Things like “blue laws” (banning sales of alcohol on Sunday) are connected to Christians trying to impose their religious ideas on people. Or the idea that someone’s testimony or oath can’t be believed if not sworn on a bible.

    • HopeOfTheGunblade
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      1510 months ago

      Did you ever see that one politician who swore up and down that America is a Christian nation because you swear into office on the Bible? Complete deer in headlights look when the interviewer explained that the Bible was an option, not a requirement.

    • @Maggoty
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      310 months ago

      And always trying to rationalize it as not religious. Fucking maddening.