Even before the court ruled in favor of this vulgar fiction, state authorities relied on the concept to intimidate and jail women
Something that’s important to remember about last week’s ruling by the Alabama supreme court, which held that frozen embryos were persons under state law, is that the very absurdity of the claim is itself a demonstration of power. That a frozen embryo – a microscopic bit of biological information that can’t even be called tissue, a flick laden with the hopes of aspiring parents but fulfilling none of them – is equivalent in any way to a child is the sort of thing you can only say if no one has the power to laugh at you. The Alabama supreme court is the final court of review in that state. It cannot be appealed. For the foreseeable future, frozen cells in Alabama have the same legal status there as you or I do. Is this an absurd elevation of the status of an embryo, or an obscene degradation of human beings? The answer, of course, is both.
The ruling will get replaced by a new piece of legislation that “fixes” the loophole and re-legalizes IVF. Probably reasonable quickly. Even the lunatic fringe conservatives didn’t intend to shut down IVF.
The real scandal here isn’t even the chaos caused by the court going wild like this – though that certainly is a scandal.
What we should be concerned about is the fact that a member of a fringe religious cult that actively believes in doing away with the separation of church and state (the Seven Mountain Mandate) is not just actively and enthusiastically legislating from the bench, but is citing actual religious principles and scriptures in his decisions. And nothing is being done about it.
This justice sincerely believes literal demons have infiltrated the government and need to be engaged in holy war. He’s a fundamentalist zealot. He is violating his oath to the rule of law on a daily basis.
I wouldn’t be so sure on that. The “lunatic fringe”, as you put it, has absolutely no problem sacrificing IVF on their altar. And even if the legislature passes a law to “patch” the issue, they know they have a sympathetic ear on the bench. They will have to challenge that law, and they know there will be at least one vote on the Alabama Supreme Court who will be sympathetic.
Agreed. This was on someone’s list.