The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos are children in a wrongful death lawsuit over the destruction of several frozen embryos, reversing a lower court’s decision to dismiss the case.
Three couples had sued a fertility clinic, The Center for Reproductive Medicine, and the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center after a wandering patient trespassed into the area, handled their embryos and dropped them.
It’s alleged the patient burned himself on the sub-zero freezer, causing him to drop the embryos, thus killing them.
The lawsuit claimed the facilities were negligent and breached their contracts with the couples. It also cited the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
A lower court judge had tossed the wrongful death lawsuit, reasoning that the embryos were not covered under the law.
But the state’s highest court reversed that decision, finding that embryos do count as children. The move reinstates the lawsuits against the medical facilities.
“The Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” the court wrote in its Friday opinion. “Neither the text of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act nor this Court’s precedents exclude extrauterine children from the Act’s coverage. Unborn children are ’children’ under the Act, without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.”
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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