The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state considers frozen embryos to be “children,” allowing three couples to sue for wrongful death after hospital patients allegedly destroyed their embryos. handed down the verdict.

Three Alabama couples will sue the state's reproductive health center, the Center for Reproductive Health, and the hospital where their frozen embryos were stored, Mobile Clinic Medical Center, alleging it was vandalized by hospitalized patients in 2021 It was. according to Go to AL.com. Lawyers for the hospital and fertility center argued that the couple cannot sue for wrongful death because state law does not cover fetuses outside the mother's womb, Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parrish Phillips said. A judge will dismiss the case in 2022, the paper reported.

In a new state Supreme Court ruling, the justices said the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, which lawyers for hospitals and fertility centers used in their arguments, “applies to all unborn children, regardless of location.” Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in a filing that the law not only applies to all children “without restriction,” but also creates “new restrictions” based on “unique views” on public policy. He pointed out that it is not the court's role to decide. .

Frozen embryos are 'children', Alabama Supreme Court rules in couple's wrongful death lawsuit https://t.co/CFYnUFKmJU

— Adriel Bettelheim (@abettel) February 18, 2024

“[T]Wrongful death due to minor acts is broad and does not qualify. This applies to all children, born or unborn, without restriction. It is not our role to create new limits based on our own views about what is or is not prudent public policy. That is especially true when, as here, courts adopt constitutional amendments directly aimed at preventing the exclusion of “fetuses'' from legal protection,'' Mitchell wrote.

According to AL.com, the couple alleges in a 2021 lawsuit that Mobile Infirmary “allowed one of the patients to leave his room in the clinic's hospital area, elope, or access the cryogenic storage area. I gave permission,'' he claimed. When the patient allegedly removed the embryo from the freezer, the couple “burned the eloping patient's hands in sub-zero temperatures and dropped the cryopreserved human fetus on the floor, where it slowly began to die.” ' he claimed. the lawsuit states.

It is unclear whether the couple will continue to file lawsuits against the two locations or seek damages following the state Supreme Court's ruling.