The logic of it, even without reading the Alabama Supreme Court opinion, is clear.
Life begins at conception, and therefore embryos artificially conceived are alive, and entitled to teh same protection as other early infants.
It's not really that shocking, and frankly, I agree with that.
Hence the logcial question presented to the Alabama Supreme Court by
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.
It's a logical question, and it was brought by the upset parents.
The decision is lengthy, and involves a host of issues, but the basic conclusion is this:
Here,the text ofthe Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation. Itis not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based 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. Art.I, 36.06 ,Ala. Const. 2022.1
The Court reached the right decision.
And now people are reacting in horror, including the putative nominee for the Oval Office on the GOP side, who has tweeted:
Let's start with some obvious things.
Firstly, I don't know what Donald Trump thinks the "ultimate joy in life" is. Given as he's a serial polygamist who cheated on two spouses, I'm skeptical that it's a happy family life.
I'm frankly quite skeptical that Trump really is that against abortion in the first place, although that's just skepticism on my part. I can't see where Trump really holds that many values on anything in particular, really.
He does value getting reelected however and now he, like a lot of Republicans, are scrambling to figure out how to react to this, in no small part because a large number of Americans are probably now looking at the actual meaning of what social conservatism, and I am a social conservatism, is, and they're now really uncomfortable with it.
Americans overall, or at least a lot of Americans, claim that they are all for traditional values and are conservatives, but what they mean is that they are in favor of marriage, sort of, and family life, sort of, as long as that means you can easily dump your spouse and get remarred as much as you want to, and kill your offspring in utero up to sixteen weeks. This applies as much to Republicans as it does to Democrats. If you are looking at a GOP candidate, and they've been married more than once, it's frankly a perfectly fair question to ask them if they really believe in what they claim they do.
Indeed, the whole close embrace to religion the press claims is going on is really a close embrace to the American Civil Religion. It's certainly not a close embrace of Apostolic Christianity. At least Catholicism holds that artificial insemination of human's is morally wrong in the first instance, and this provides just one of the reasons why. It's completely contra natural.
But here's the added deal. When people claim they're advancing values, how deep have they looked at their arguments and how far are they prepared to go, and are they willing to apply them, to themselves?
Are those on the right in favor of traditional values, really in favor of them. Are those on the left who claim to be in favor of nature, willing to really live with it?
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