Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children,’ Alabama Supreme Court Rules in Couples’ Wrongful Death Suits
18th February 2024
Three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed when a wandering Mobile hospital patient dropped the specimens can sue for wrongful death because the embryos were “children,” the Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday in reversing a judge’s decision to throw out the case.
The Center for Reproductive Medicine, a fertility clinic used by the couples, and Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, where the embryos were being stored, claimed the couples could not sue for wrongful death because Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act does not cover embryos outside the womb.
But the Alabama Supreme Court disagreed when it reversed Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parrish Phillips’ ruling to dismiss the case in 2022.
The Wrongful Death of a Minor Act “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” wrote Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell. “[T]he Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation. It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy. That is especially true where, as here, the People of this State have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding ‘unborn life’ from legal protection.”