this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
304 points (98.4% liked)

politics

19248 readers
2345 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are children, which pro-choice rights groups have warned could have dangerous implications for fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization.

The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday reversed Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parrish Phillips’ decision to dismiss a lawsuit in which a couple sued an Alabama fertility clinic and hospital for the “wrongful death” of their frozen embryos in a ruling that was riddled with theology. The couple’s frozen embryos were destroyed after a hospital patient who accessed the freezer that held the embryos dropped them on the floor. The ruling means that the couple can sue for wrongful death.

This should end well. /s

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 133 points 10 months ago (2 children)

In other news, hundreds of Alabama hospital staff were arrested for keeping children locked in freezing rooms for weeks on end.

[–] NatakuNox 8 points 10 months ago

You jest but pro birthers don't want embryos to be sitting in a freezer waiting to be used. They want them in a women's body and to be fertilized asap. If the women doesn't want more kids? Too bad.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Heh wait till they learn there's a non zero percent of embryos that get fertilized but never implant in the womb and get flushed down the toilet every month.

[–] AnUnusualRelic 4 points 10 months ago

Learn? What's that?

[–] DevCat 92 points 10 months ago (2 children)

How many embryos do you think you can manage to store? According to one site, storage costs are $400-$600 per year. You should be able to claim one exemption for each embryo and wipe out your withholding taxes. Maybe even get some extra state benefits, like qualifying for state aid since your income is so low on a per-child basis.

[–] SinningStromgald 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

As many as you are willing to go through the process with. Not sure when you would break even or see a "profit" based on cost though. Each cycle costs ~$4k+ with insurance and ~$10k+ without. And it is my understanding the process isn't "fun" or "easy".

Also, would the "children" ever age out? And when would you start counting for their age if they did/could age out? And if they do age would you get in trouble for not enrolling them in school? Or even if you do would you get in trouble for them never actually attending?

I have so many questions!

[–] SpaceNoodle 28 points 10 months ago (2 children)

They're children, but have no birthday, so they never age!

An exemption of $4,400 per child plus potentially another $1,900 in child tax credit makes it pay off within the first year. And why not just huck 'em in your own freezer and save on those storage costs to boot?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Because you don’t want the children to die in YOUR care. That was an easy question.

[–] SpaceNoodle 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Then just scoop a few more out, they can't tell the difference

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I feel like a state that tries to regulate embryos are going to heavily control the action of “scooping a few more out”

[–] SpaceNoodle 5 points 10 months ago

Just pop a couple states over, you can afford it with all the money you're saving on taxes

[–] LrdThndr 13 points 10 months ago

This is starting to read like a magic the gathering combo.

—-

Alabama - Legendary Land

At the beginning of your upkeep, create a 0/1 white child creature token and tap it.

Child creature tokens do not untap during your untap phase.

1, tap, sacrifice an untapped child creature token: Exile target creature or planeswalker until Alabama leaves the battlefield.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah they don't talk about this much but a lot of women that donate eggs actually end up infertile, with breast or colon cancer, and/or a host of other severe and painful complications. Egg retrieval is not an easy or risk-free procedure, especially if you have the fertility to conceive on your own. And because of the lack of long-term data, they don't have to inform you about this stuff before you go through with it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

Won't work. Guarantee the courts will rule that embryos are only children in cases where medical personnel can be prosecuted. Aka only when they want.

Turns out logic doesn't apply in cases where the ruling isn't based on logic.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The storage facilities can then claim child tax credits for each embryo, right? Are the embryos currently considered in-prisoned against their will? Welfare and food stamp application for the embryos should be interesting. Can I install a freezer with hundreds of frozen embryos, then use taxpayer money to help pay for my mansion to "shelter" them in? Where is the line drawn? Are menstrual cycles without pregnancy considered murder each month? WTF

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Being as I am from the Nordics where religion is generally not too visible in public life, seeing language that is this explicitly religious in legal text is just mind-boggling:

the Alabama Constitution Section 36.06, which argues that each person was made in God’s image, meaning each life has an incalculable value that “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”

Also, here's a completely random legal factlet for you: the Criminal Code of Finland was originally written into law in 1889 and it still has an "intro" from tsar Alexander III of Russia. It translates to approximately this:

We Alexander the Third, by the Grace of God, Emperor and Sovereign of the whole Russian Empire, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., etc., etc., do hereby make known: by the subordinate proposal of the State Legislatures of Finland, We hereby graciously establish the following criminal code for the Grand Duchy of Finland, the enforcement of which, as well as the execution of penalties, shall be the subject of a special decree

That's the only part left of the original law, the rest has been amended a zillion times and I think the oldest sections in the current text are from the 70's. Why that bit from the tsar is still there is honestly a good question, considering our time under Russian rule isn't exactly fondly remembered (although wasn't nearly as bad as what they got in the Baltics for example).

[–] Rapidcreek 31 points 10 months ago

Every sperm is sacred.

Every sperm is great.

If a sperm is wasted,

God (and Alabama) gets quite irate.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago

Do these hospitals and labs have to apply for a daycare license?

And are lab technicians, nurses, doctors, and scientists now forced to endure babysitter minimum wages as a result of this ruling?

Obvious sarcasm. Alabama is such an embarrassment to the free world.

[–] banichan 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If there's no shit to clean up, there's no child.

Interpret that however you will.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Nobody actually believes this bullshit. Anyone who was forced to choose between saving a toddler and a canister containing 1000 human embryos, would choose the toddler.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's how you know their argument is false. Literally no one would waver between saving an actual baby and an embryo. Even if it was a billion embryos (not sure how that would happen), the baby would be saved first. Even if it was your embryo, you would save a random baby first (unless you're a sociopath).

People are just hardwired to care about babies, not cells. That's why the "pro-life" pamphlets and signs have actual babies on them. People care about born children more.

[–] laughterlaughter 5 points 10 months ago

Even if it was your embryo, you would save a random baby first (unless you’re a sociopath).

What if that baby was Hitler? Checkmate, atheists!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Can I choose neither?

[–] RageAgainstTheRich 22 points 10 months ago

We are being ruled by braindead morons...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Huh? Alabama is so fucking screwed up they refuse to "kill" a frozen embryo because it's made in god's image. Still, they will not hesitate to execute a felon with the death penalty even though he is living and breathing already in god's image. Can someone explain this to me slowly? I'm old.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Alabama is looking to police and control people, the text they’re deriving the idea from is irrelevant aside from being invocable and authoritative. Read The Handmaid’s Tale to see a glorious breakdown of the methodology.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We should rule that wasted sperm is also murder.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Ovulation too. Every woman must remain pregnant at all times or else she is willingly participating in the death of babies.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

If embryos are children is every period a murder?

[–] folshost 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't believe every egg released during every menstrual cycle is fertilized.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Zero eggs stored in a hospital freezer are fertilized, so while periods aren’t dropping embryos, they are still dropping eggs.

[–] agissilver 1 points 10 months ago

This is wrong. An embryo is a fertilized egg, and there are many that are frozen after egg retrieval and fertilization as part of IVF.

[–] Neon 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's a Zygote and not an Embryo

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

You think any of these cousinfuckers in Alabama know the difference?

"A zygote? Is that like a billygote?"

[–] agissilver 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ovum + spermatocyte = zygote. Zygote is a type of embryo that is single celled but can only exist through fertilization. Ova are released prior to periods and are unfertilized. It's possible a period happens after fertilization with failed implantation.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Buffalox 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I guess this is what they mean, when they say reality beats fiction.
This level of insanity is astounding.
They say USA is as religious as Iran. I guess they could be right.
Claiming late bronze age ignorant superstitious writings as the basis for decisions on laws today is insane by any standard, except the standard of religious insanity.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Cool so we can claim these frozen embryos on our taxes right? We can get state benefits that are allotted to children for these embryos as well?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Wait till a freezer breaks down

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

And then things got worse.

[–] littlebluespark 5 points 10 months ago

Alabama can barely read...

[–] AnUnusualRelic 4 points 10 months ago

Children are more and more expensive. They have to be frozen now?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Well ‘bama better provide some schooling for them ‘children’!

Thousands of teeeny tiny lil seats and books.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

In other news - dumb southern states doing dumb southern things.

[–] acetanilide 2 points 10 months ago

Frustrating that the article doesn't link to the actual ruling

Unless I missed it. In which case, I need new glasses