The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are children. The landmark decision has longterm implications that could ultimately provide legal protection for unborn embryos, including those that have been frozen in the in vitro process. The wording was strongly based in the Word of God. (“Theology-riddled” is what opponents call it).
The ruling was based in Alabama Constitution Section 36.06 which argues that each person was made in God’s image, meaning each life has incalculable value that “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
The ruling specifically said “Section 36.06 recognizes that this is true of unborn human life no less than it is of all other human life—that even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing His glory.”
Opponents of the ruling are warning that the ruling may have “harmful consequences” for fertility treatments in Alabama, of course referring to in vitro implantations and the freezing of left-over embryos. The problem of abandoned “freezer embryos” is mammoth nationwide. There are currently over a million frozen embryos and the numbers are drastically rising each year. Hundreds of thousands have simply been abandoned and cast aside.
The case before the Alabama Supreme Court was one in which the embryos had been accidentally dropped at the storage facility. Parents had filed a wrongful death suit. The Alabama Supreme Court overturned a Mobile County court decision to dismiss the suit. The couple may now sue for wrongful death.
I have great sympathy for this couple in this wrongful death scenario. I offer prayers for the hundreds of thousands of abandoned lives in storage facilities across our nation. And I have never been more proud to be an Alabamian. I hope you will pray as this ruling faces the possibility of appeal. Who in this world will stand against the atrocity that most commonly accompanies in vitro fertilization, if not Christians?
Encouragement. It was the large numbers of millennials and iGens that thrilled my soul. Thousands of “Students for Life” signs and school groups with matching toboggans were everywhere you looked. There were thousands upon thousands of these thirty-five-and-under adults and teens. The children of these people may ultimately carry the name “Generation Life.” I pray they do.
Motivation. One can hardly attend an event like the March for Life without wanting to do more for the unborn. I came home wanting to do more, say more, and influence more for the babies who are paying the ultimate earthly price for the national sin of abortion.
Appreciation. I’m thankful for voices that are powerfully protective of life in our nation at this moment in time. It was a historic moment when our President, for the first time in history, decided to attend and speak at the March. I cannot endorse everything the president says, but I appreciate the strong words he said in behalf of the babies. They were direct and profoundly simple. I’m thankful to him for his powerful pro-life voice. I’m thankful for voices like that of Steve Scalise, who is the strong arm for the Born Alive Act. I’m thankful for the work of Jeanne Mancini and others who organize the March and are tireless in their efforts for the unborn on a national level through the year. I’m acutely grateful to live in a country in which I can find myself in the middle of tens of thousands of people on the national mall making a statement of conscience about a principle of righteousness. Though the principle (of the
Outrage. The lack of logic on the posters of the few who showed up in support of the pro-choice movement was just that—outrageous: “Pro-Life Hypocrites…Didn’t see ya’ at the March for Climate Control?”
Finally, this is not exactly a take-away, because I’ve shared this treasure for a lifetime. I took this precious gift with me and brought it back home: the gift of fellowship with sisters. Twenty-four hours in the car and ten miles walking around Capitol Hill with a focus of protecting unborn life has a way of bringing sisters together like no regular fellowship meal (though we’re all about them, too) probably ever will. Our conversations, prayers, shared spaces and debacles were all catalysts for memories and for a hope to do it again with more sisters. So thanks, Lindsey Van Hook, for the idea of the trek (and the vendor pretzels at 4 pm after skipping most of breakfast and all of lunch…It’s hard to decide for which of those I was most thankful.) We’re all most thankful to God for constant provision and protection.