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Comment by sph87 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah man, I don’t disagree with any of that. But that is not what the ruling is about. The law, as it is written, only says “children”. This was a law written in the 1800s. It does not consider any of that.

The defense said, “hey you should throw this out because that thing isn’t a child, it hasn’t been born yet. Also, even if it was a child, they signed waivers and accidents happen.” The court said, “you can’t just say this doesn’t count because it hasn’t been born yet, but your right about the other stuff. Case dismissed.”

They did not rule on the number of cells that constitutes a child because that was not the argument. Here is the pseudocode:

Defense: If(!born) then child = false

Judge: Error

Media: mind blown

You: ‘If(cells <= 10) then child = false’ works on my machine

Me: That’s not what caused the error

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> Yeah man, I don’t disagree with any of that. But that is not what the ruling is about. The law, as it is written, only says “children”. This was a law written in the 1800s. It does not consider any of that.

A law in the 1800s did not consider embryos children. They did not have funerals for every miscarriage, most people didn’t name children until after birth, and in the early 1800s abortion was a not uncommon practice and even advertised.

I think it’s also worth noting that when that started to change it was racist and focused on babies, still having no concept of an embryo as a human, as white people got concerned that immigrants and former slaves would outbreed them:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-compl...

Alabama was early to criminalize but the laws reflected the understanding of the time–functional but not scientific–and banned inducing a miscarriage because they understood how pregnancy worked but didn’t treat it as murder, following biblical precedent. The total ban is a historical precedent going all the way back to 2019: https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2022/06/24/a...

https://www.al.com/news/mobile/2021/11/frozen-embryos-not-pe...

The defense was arguing that frozen non-implanted embryos are not “children”, not just unborn.

And here’s the opinion, in case you are still confused:

https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-...

From the ruling:

The parties to these cases have raised many difficult questions, including ones about the ethical status of extrauterine children, the application of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to such children, and the public-policy implications of treating extrauterine children as human beings. But the Court today need not address these questions because, as explained below, the relevant statutory text is clear: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies on its face to all unborn children, without limitation.

Under the defendants' test, even a full-term infant conceived through IVF and gestated to term would not qualify as a "child" or "person," because such a child would be "unborn" (having never been delivered from a biological womb).

Unborn children are "children" under the Act, without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics. 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.

As I have stated above this is a very narrow ruling. About born or unborn. And what’s more it doesn’t even rule in favor of the families. It upholds the dismissal of the case on other grounds.

You are all trying to apply this to cases that they explicitly side stepped! The ONLY questioned answered by the court is: Does this law apply to unborn children? Nothing more.

> The ONLY questioned answered by the court is: Does this law apply to unborn children?

No.

The very beginning of the opinion:

> This Court has long held that unborn children are "children" for purposes of Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, § 6-5-391, Ala. Code 1975, a statute that allows parents of a deceased child to recover punitive damages for their child's death. The central question presented in these consolidated appeals, which involve the death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery, is whether the Act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children -- that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed. Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.

Yes. It applies to all unborn children. The central question presented in these consolidated appeals is whether the Act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children -- that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed.

The circumstances of the case, that is that it involves death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery, is not material to the validity of the argument.

They did not say: even if they are embryos. They said all unborn children.

This does not mean embryos ARE children. That was not what was argued nor what the court decided upon. You are inferring meaning outside the scope of the ruling. They side stepped the part you are upset about. They are very, very clear that this is about unborn children. The word embryos only appear once - while discussing the surround context, not the finding of the court or the question they were answering.

I am not inferring or making any claims. I am merely correcting your incorrect claims.

I believe that you are not arguing in good faith. The opinion is very clear on the matter. It is also extremely clear on what they are clarifying. You are making claims that make it clear you have either not read the opinion or are intentionally misconstruing it's language.

Haha you feel like I’m wrong but you just can’t articulate why? I understand bro. Have a good night.

I've provided you with the document to read and quoted very specific, very clear, very unambiguous sections that you then somehow misinterpret.

The Court: "We find X to be true".

You: "The Court is saying Z".

It's very strange because I read the "Wrongful Death of a Minor" statute and it says nothing about born vs. unborn children, unless it was recently amended. If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying that the Court previously interpreted that "black letter statute" wording to include unborn children (even if the actual wording of the statute does not) and in this case they're merely taking the "relatively uncontroversial" step of expanding their novel interpretation of the statute so that it also includes IVF embryos. Even though the statute discusses neither.

The dissenting justice seems to confirm my impression: "Justice Greg Cook, who filed the only full dissent to the majority opinion, said the 1872 law did not define "minor child" and was being stretched from the original intent to cover frozen embryos."

So the court has now made two rulings that vastly expand the scope of the "minor child" that is mentioned in the "black letter statute". This is obviously fraught with ethical implications and implications for future cases. But since the court asserted that this is simply applying "statute" and there are "no major ethical implications", I guess we just have to accept their assertion? That seems foolish.

Yes, but the number of cells is somewhat relevant. Any unfertilized egg or misplaced sperm is an important fraction of a child. A single fertilized egg could be viewed as a child.

The court did not rule on that. This specific law only says children. The defense said this case did not apply because these are embryos that had not been born. The court said that’s not a valid argument because the word children includes unborn children.

For you to then say, ohh well these don’t meet the development criteria is a different argument entirely. That was not the test proposed by the defense. Had they said, this does not count because it doesn’t meet a cell count threshold, then that would be something the court did not rule on.

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