DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus In unprecedented decision, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos are children. It could have chilling effects on IVF, critics say

In a first-of-its-kind ruling, Alabama’s Supreme Court said frozen embryos are children and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death – a decision that puts back into national focus the question of when life begins and one that reproductive rights advocates say could have a chilling effect on infertility treatments and the hundreds of Alabamians who seek them each year.

And, critics say, the ruling could soon have consequences nationally as other states could attempt to define embryos as people. Already, one religious group is using the Alabama ruling as precedent in a Florida abortion rights case.

“This is part of a long and strategic march towards entrenching this ideology of fetal personhood, that is at the heart of controlling pregnant people, their decisions and their birth outcomes,” Dana Sussman, the deputy executive director of legal advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, told CNN.

The Alabama ruling, which was released Friday, stems from two lawsuits filed by three sets of parents who underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures to have babies and then opted to have the remaining embryos frozen.

The parents allege in December 2020, a patient at the Mobile hospital where the frozen embryos were being stored walked into the fertility clinic through an “unsecured doorway,” and removed several embryos from the cryogenic nursery, the state’s Supreme Court ruling said. The patient’s hand was “freeze-burned” by the extremely low temperatures the embryos were stored in and the patient dropped them on the floor, killing them, according to the ruling.

The parents sued for wrongful death but a trial court dismissed their claims, finding the “cryopreserved, in vitro embryos involved in this case do not fit within the definition of a ‘person’ or ‘child,’” according to the ruling.

But in a stunning reversal last week, the state Supreme Court disagreed, noting “extrauterine children” – or, unborn children “located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed” – are children, and they are covered under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor law.

An attorney for one of the couples told CNN the case is solely about accountability for the parents whose embryos weren’t kept safe by the clinic, and the state Supreme Court’s ruling offers them a way forward for justice.

Though the court’s decision does not prohibit IVF, it’s the first known case in which a US court says frozen embryos are human beings, and that could have profound impacts on how the fertility industry in Alabama operates, critics warned.

They say it could send liability costs skyrocketing, making fertility treatment prices prohibitive for many families; it could discourage medical providers from performing infertility treatments in fear of being held liable each time an embryo does not turn into a successful pregnancy; and it could mean parents will now be forced to pay for lifelong storage fees of embryos they will never be allowed to discard, even if they don’t want any more children.

“No rational medical provider would continue to provide services for creating and maintaining frozen embryos knowing that they must continue to maintain such frozen embryos forever or risk the penalty of a Wrongful Death Act claim,” Alabama Supreme Court Justice Greg Cook wrote in the sole full dissenting opinion.

“There is no doubt that there are many Alabama citizens praying to be parents who will no longer have that opportunity,” he added.

What the court’s ruling says

The state Supreme Court’s decision centers on whether frozen embryos are covered under the Alabama Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, which allows parents to sue for punitive damages when their child dies.

At the heart of that question is whether those embryos should be considered children.

In its majority opinion, the court ruled they should, noting Alabama residents voted in 2018 to amend the Constitution to include protections for unborn life. Whether that unborn life is physically in or out of a uterus shouldn’t matter, it said.

“The People of Alabama have declared the public policy of this State to be that unborn human life is sacred,” Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote in his concurring opinion. “We believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness.”

The defendants in the case – the fertility clinic, the hospital and its owner – argued creating wrongful-death liability for frozen embryos would substantially increase the costs of the treatment and could make the preservation of the embryos “onerous” for Alabama families. CNN reached out to representatives of the defendants but has not heard back.

The Alabama Medical Association, which also weighed in prior to the court’s decision, warned such a ruling would create an “enormous potential for civil liability” for fertility specialists, because embryos can be damaged or become unsuitable for pregnancy at any time during an IVF process, including when they are being thawed.

And the ruling could mean parents cannot opt to discard embryos, which happens for a number of reasons, including divorce or the death of one of the two, the association said.

That would cause “embryos to remain in cryogenic storage even after the couple who underwent the IVF treatment have died and potentially even after the couple’s children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren have died,” the state’s medical association wrote in an amicus brief.

“This absurd result would be the outcome if this Court extends the wrongful death liability to the destruction of cryopreserved embryos,” the association added.

Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled those questions belong with lawmakers and that the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is clear in that it includes “all children, born and unborn, without limitation.”

Trip Smalley, an attorney representing one of the couples, told CNN Tuesday the parents were “devastated” by the destruction of their embryo and simply sought a way to be able to hold the fertility clinic accountable. Any policy issues that may arise from the ruling should be taken up by lawmakers, he said.

“Our goal is simply to provide a measure of relief to my clients for the facts of this particular case and the wider-ranging policy fallout, I think it’s just too early to know what that will be,” he said.

“What we can’t have is a situation where these clinics are not subject to civil justice,” Smalley added. “How that justice is imposed does present difficult decisions.”

The case will be sent back to the lower court and the parties will prepare for trial, Smalley said.

Dozens of Alabama patients worried

IVF is a method of assisted reproduction that involves removing eggs from the ovaries and fertilizing them with sperm outside the body. The resulting embryos are then typically placed in a person’s uterus in hopes they spur a successful pregnancy.

“The goal is to actually create as many embryos as possible because that gives you the greatest chance at a pregnancy,” said Barbara Collura, president and CEO of the patient advocacy organization RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association.

That often means there are remaining embryos that are frozen and stored in fertility clinics or cryopreservation centers for several hundred dollars annually.

Once families decide they don’t want any more children, they have several options for those embryos, including to discard them or donate them to research or another family, Collura said. Last week’s ruling could take some of those options off the table, she told CNN.

“We have a lot more questions than we do answers,” Collura said. “Will people be able to have rights over their embryos?”

“People who are already in the midst of (infertility treatments) or who’ve already done IVF in this state and have frozen embryos, what’s the status of those embryos? What can they do with them?” she added. “We just don’t know.”

Dr. Mamie McLean, with Alabama Fertility Specialists, which offers reproductive care in the state, told CNN she’s already heard from more than 30 patients since the ruling who are worried they won’t have control over what happens to their frozen embryos.

“We worry that if this ruling and its worst case becomes true, that we will be limited in the ability to keep frozen embryos in the state of Alabama, which will make fertility care riskier and more expensive for patients, and ultimately limit the access to care that women in Alabama have.”

“Patients are worried,” she added. “This is adding anxiety and stress to patients who are already going through a lot to build their families.”

Doctors are worried too, McLean said: “We’re worried that if this ruling stands, that fewer babies will be born in Alabama.”

About 1 in 4 married women in the United States ages 15 to 49 without prior births has difficulty getting pregnant, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. And roughly 1 in 6 adults globally experience infertility, according to the World Health Organization.

Religious freedom group uses Alabama ruling as precedent in Florida abortion case

The Alabama Supreme Court’s decision will make modern fertility care inaccessible for the state’s families, reproductive medicine advocates say.

“No healthcare provider will be willing to provide treatments if those treatments may lead to civil or criminal charges,” American Society for Reproductive Medicine President Dr. Paula Amato said in a statement.

“Young physicians will choose not to come to the state for training or to begin their practice,” Amato said. “Existing clinics will be forced to choose between providing sub-optimal patient car or shutting their doors.”

Others say they worry the ruling creates a road map that groups and legislators across the country who have previously targeted fertility treatments can now follow.

Liberty Counsel – a nonprofit that says it works to advance “religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family” – said it is using the Alabama ruling as a precedent to argue a proposed amendment in Florida aiming to protect abortion rights will take away “a protected right to life for the unborn.”

“Every human life begins as an embryo, and now the Alabama Supreme Court has upheld the decision of its citizenry that every unborn life should be protected, no matter their stage or location,” Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver said in a statement.

“This important ruling has far-reaching implications. Liberty Counsel is using this precedent to argue that Florida’s proposed deceptive and misleading abortion amendment violates Florida’s own laws that routinely recognize that an ‘unborn child’ has the legally protected rights of a person. Unborn life must be protected at every stage,” Staver said.

Collura, with RESOLVE, told CNN she worries about how similar groups may use the ruling.

“You now have a Supreme Court very emphatically say that a frozen embryo is a person and we’re going to see now other states trying to codify that,” Collura said.

“Mark my words: I am absolutely sure that this is what is going to be our future for IVF in the United States.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/20/us/alabama-embryo-law-ruling-supreme-court/index.html

And here I had no idea you could cryogenically freeze a child for up to decades and that child survive.

I can hear it now when people get audited on their tax returns. "It says here you have eight children. Is that correct?", asks the tax auditor.

Well yes we do have eight children", the man replies. "There's the three at home and the five in the lab."

These people have lost their minds.
A sick combination of poor education, Christian nationalism, and lack of empathy.

Really setting the stage for a violent pendulum swing the other way.

The craziest thing of all is that these are unfertilized eggs.

It would be impossible for them to become children until they're fertilized. Some women choose to freeze several eggs and may only use one of them. Did they commit the murder of a children because they chose to discard the others?

This is like someone having eggs for breakfast and claiming it was fried chicken.

Got to get up and make me some breakfast before I head off to the shop for the day Going to go murder some chickens… er… make some eggs. Which came first, the murder or the chicken? Man it must be a moral battle for Christian’s every morning having to murder for a meal.
Uneducated bunch of nimrods. Sleeping through biology class while dutifully twisting every word their preacher spewed forth. Now they make legislation. Awesome. And by awesome I mean unreal.

j/c:

This is such a dumb fight and ridiculous stance for the Republicans.

I agree but what other option is there in Alabama, though? They are firmly cemented.

It took one hell of a media campaign to NOT get Roy Moore elected down there. Then they put Tuberville in office, who - after Menéndez - might be the most corrupt Senator. He also couldn’t name the three branches of Government and says all kinds of stupid things.

I remember Super Brown was from Alabama and used to post stuff in this forum that made extremists look moderate. Alex Jones videos and whatnot. That also coincides with the general pulse I get when I go down to places like Maxwell AFB.

Then there’s this. The state is lost. I hope they wake up.

Oh, I am aware of the Tuberville stupidity and corruption that goes all the way back to him being the HC of my Alma Mater's football team.

The dude is, to put it mildly, not good people.

Ha, that's interesting. I didn't realize you went to Auburn. Explains a lot

I only knew him as a mediocre college coach prior to his Senate campaign. He really opened my eyes to disdain when he blocked the military promotions and came out with a quote about something along the lines of "We have to be able to trade stocks in Congress because we need more incentive than the minimal salary we are offered." I could be butchering it, but it was along those lines.

I didn't. I went to UC.

This is a crazy story, but I'm really not following this statement. Excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by that?


HOW does something like this make it to a Supreme Court in any state?

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Something that should have resulted in a "sorry" and a "hey, put a lock on that door". 🤣

I think the swing being referred to is the one where sane people wake up and vote these idiots out of office. My guess is the knuckledragging christian nationalist in Bama will still rule their state. The brain drain in places like that is real. People get their college educations and GTFO of backwards crapholes like Alabama. Leaving those left behind to be ruled by their barely highschool educated drooling counterparts that think eggs are chickens.

Oh man, that's even worse! I went to Xavier! I figured Auburn because of geography with Memphis, although I suppose the two aren't all that close now that I think about it.

I mean the pendulum swinging back violently, not people acting violently. Kind of like what we saw with the backlash against the Republicans after Roe was overturned. This I think would take it a step further. If they stay aggressive on things like IVF or venture out to challenge things like gay marriage, I think there will be a political reckoning.

Anyone have an extra deep freezer in your garage? You could open up a daycare in Alabama.
EgZ r PeEpL so PeEpL MuSt Be EgZ

Using this logic, any woman that miscarried is guilty as well.

Or any egg that did not implant in the uterus.

The inmates are running the asylum.

I Had No Good Options For My Frozen Embryos. Now, In Alabama, What I Did With Them Could Be Illegal.

"Adding the stress of serious legal repercussions to this IVF process feels downright cruel, particularly when individuals already sacrifice so much along the way."

For me, getting pregnant involved years of doctors’ visits, fertility drugs and false hopes. Fortunately, my story has a happy ending. Thanks to in vitro fertilization, I have two healthy sons who fill my life with joy and ensure I can’t walk through the house without stepping on a Lego or a plastic dinosaur.

Then, last year, after deciding our family was complete — because honestly, some days even two kids feels like too many — my husband and I made the excruciating choice to have our two remaining frozen embryos destroyed. And as with all things fertility-related, that decision was complicated.

Deciding what to do

According to our Atlanta-based clinic, which was charging us hundreds of dollars per month to store the embryos, our choices were to thaw and destroy them, donate them for scientific research or donate them to another couple.

Initially we ruled out discarding them; it felt wrong to dump something we’d worked so hard to create from our own bodies into the proverbial trash. I also couldn’t stomach the thought of donating them to another couple and then knowing my DNA might be somewhere out there in the world. That left one option: donating our embryos to scientific research.

But while most fertility clinics list donating embryos to science as an option, what they don’t tell you is that this is nearly impossible to do. Our clinic, for example, provided a list of five organizations to contact. Four of them were no longer accepting embryos, and the fifth declined to accept ours because we live in Georgia, which, in 2019, passed an ultra-conservative law about when “personhood” begins.

Under the 2019 law, a human embryo is a legally recognized, legally protected person in Georgia, with all the rights and protections that implies. The state even went so far as to add “unborn dependents” to the tax code, meaning I could theoretically claim my embryos as a tax deduction.

And now, my neighboring state of Alabama has gone one step further.

The utter madness of the Alabama ruling

In a first-of-its-kind ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court declared frozen embryos to be “children” and that anyone who destroys them can be liable for wrongful death. This ruling led the state’s largest hospital system, the University of Alabama system, to pause its IVF services over fears of possible criminal prosecution — and rightfully so.

During the IVF process, there are many moments where embryos can perish. Sometimes they’re implanted in a woman’s uterus but fail to result in a pregnancy. Other times they simply don’t survive the thawing process. To think that a doctor could be charged with the wrongful death of a “child” in these situations is ludicrous. Far from being akin to the harming of a flesh and blood child, these examples are sadly just part of the often heartbreaking process of IVF.

Currently in the U.S. there are an estimated 1.5 million frozen embryos, many of which will go unused. If, under the Alabama ruling, we are to view these as “children” (again, ridiculous) then that means we have an adoption crisis on our hands, with tens of thousands of “children” in need of a home. But certainly the pro-life movement has already thought of this and has a list of families willing to take over continuing to pay the embryo storage fees, or for the IVF cycles needed to bring them into the world — perhaps starting with the families of the Alabama judges who issued the ruling.

Why this feels personal

The Alabama ruling has led the state’s largest hospital system to pause its IVF program and at least two other clinics have followed suit. If Alabama’s largest IVF provider is worried about blowback from the new ruling, what does that then mean for people who, like my husband and I, wrestle with the question of what to do with their unused embryos? If people choose to thaw and dispose of their embryos (as we did), does that mean they are now open to prosecution for wrongful death? Frighteningly, the likely answer is yes.

I live less than sixty miles from the Alabama border. Many of my family members live there, including my newly engaged niece. She and her fiancé want children. And as much as I hope that goes without a hitch for them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in five married women of childbearing age with no other births are unable to get pregnant after a year, without fertility interventions. Which, if the University of Alabama’s reaction to the Supreme Court ruling is any indication, are about to become much harder to access, should my niece need them.

Then there is my home state of Georgia. The current “personhood” law was worrying enough before the Alabama ruling, but has become even more so now that there’s a blueprint for how it can be used to further control a woman’s body and to dictate the very personal decision of how and when to have a family. Alabama was the first domino to fall, but there will surely be others.

This won’t end well

The best way I can describe the ups and downs of going through IVF is to liken it to a ride on an old fashioned carousel where you try to grab the brass ring each time around. Except the ring is a baby. Each time you feel so close — you can see it, and can imagine what it would feel like to hold it in your hands. Every miss leaves you devastated, but as the ride keeps going, you slowly allow yourself to hope again as you circle back around. You continue to repeat this cycle until you’ve managed to grab a ring or no longer have the stomach (or financial wherewithal) to continue the ride.

Adding the stress of serious legal repercussions to this process feels downright cruel, particularly when individuals already sacrifice so much along the way — their time, their money, their bodies. Candidates for IVF and their doctors should be free to candidly discuss all the available options and possibilities without the looming specter of the government in the room with them.

I was lucky on my fertility journey. Each night as I tuck my sons into bed, I am bowled over by my good fortune. Every inch of their velvety little-boy skin and flutter of their sleepy eyelids feels like a miracle. Sadly, though, because of the Alabama ruling (and the others that will surely come), many would-be parents will now never get to experience that same miracle.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/i-ha...ZQZoQE5-BMbYOtmLgiZQolF7Otof6wpvpdbqSSTw

This is why you don’t put zealots in positions of power… MAGA is following the idiots guide to a fascist state. MAGAts don’t think the rest of us, the other 65% OF AMERICA, have the right to democratic choice. They want to shove their agenda down our throats and force us to swallow. They obviously don’t get their predicament. DEPORT MAGA!

The state of Alabama needs to fall off the map. I hate driving through that place. It doesn't surprise me that they would do this.

#legislatechristiangrooming

Libtard

#legislatechristiangrooming

Bible-quoting Alabama chief justice sparks church-state debate in embryo ruling

When the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are considered children under state law, its chief justice had a higher authority in mind.

By citing verses from the Bible and Christian theologians in his concurring opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker alarmed advocates for church-state separation, while delighting religious conservatives who oppose abortion.

Human life, Parker wrote, “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”

The Alabama court’s ruling last week stemmed from wrongful death lawsuits brought by couples whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed.

The most immediate impact of the ruling was to leave in vitro fertilization clinics in Alabama potentially vulnerable to more lawsuits and reluctant to administer treatment. But not far behind were mounting worries about Parker’s explicit references to Christian theology.

While Parker’s concurring opinion does not carry the force of precedent, advocates for church-state separation fear he could inspire judges in other states to push the envelope.

“Now we’re in a place where government officials feel emboldened to say the quiet part out loud, and directly challenge the separation of church and state, a foundational part of our democracy,” said Rachel Laser, CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

She said Parker’s opinion was just the latest example – and a brazen one at that – of government officials advocating for Christian nationalism, a movement that seeks to privilege Christianity and fuse Christian and American identity.

Other instances she cited include Missouri lawmakers citing Catholic and biblical teachings for restricting abortion and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson saying the notion of church-state separation in the U.S. was a “misnomer.”

Parker argued in his opinion that the court was merely enforcing the Alabama state constitution, which was amended in 2018 to recognize “the sanctity of unborn life.” That principle has “deep roots that reach back to the creation of man ‘in the image of God,’” Parker said, quoting the Book of Genesis.

Parker sprinkled his opinion with a litany of religious sources, from classic Christian theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin, to a modern conservative Christian manifesto, the Manhattan Declaration, that opposes “anti-life” measures.

He also quoted a Bible verse that is legendary within the anti-abortion movement, in which God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”

THE ROOTS OF A RULING

The Alabama court’s ruling that frozen embryos are children is an extension of the ideology that undergirds the anti-abortion movement, said Mary Ziegler, a historian of the abortion debate and a law professor at the University of California, Davis.

And it points to the influence of the conservative Christian legal movement, she said. Namely, its position “that the U.S. has an intrinsically Christian Constitution” — a notion that Ziegler and many historians reject.

“The point, I think, for the movement was never just getting rid of Roe,” Ziegler said. “It was always to achieve fetal personhood,” the idea that human rights are conferred at conception.

The Alabama ruling could influence decisions in other state courts and legislatures, particularly in the 11 states that already have fetal personhood language in their laws, Ziegler said. But because it’s about the interpretation of a state law, she said the case is unlikely to make its way to the Supreme Court.

‘VICTORY FOR LIFE’

Some anti-abortion activists rejoiced at the ruling.

It’s “a tremendous victory for life,” said the powerful Christian legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom. “A beautiful defense of life,” said Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council.

The Liberty Counsel filed a notice with the Florida Supreme Court, saying the Alabama decision — including Parker’s concurrence — should be factored into a pending decision about a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would protect abortion rights.

“Unborn life must be protected at every stage,” Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel’s chairman, said in a statement.

Still, Christian perspectives on IVF are mixed, and in some cases, undecided.

While the Catholic Church condemns such reproductive technology as immoral, many Protestant churches and denominations do not have a firm stance against the practice.

Kellyanne Conway, the political consultant who worked for former President Donald Trump, lobbied GOP lawmakers in December to advocate for contraception and fertility treatments. She cited her firm’s finding that even anti-abortion evangelicals overwhelmingly support access to IVF.

JUSTICE PARKER’S MISSION

Parker is no stranger to church-state debates.

He served as former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s spokesperson during fights over a Ten Commandments monument Moore erected inside the building housing the Supreme Court.

Parker is a member of Frazer Church, a Montgomery megachurch that until 2022 was part of the United Methodist Church. The congregation, which left amid a UMC schism over the denomination not upholding its LGBTQ clergy and marriage bans, is now part of the Free Methodist Church, a more conservative denomination.

Neither United Methodists nor Free Methodists specifically condemn IVF in their church doctrines. The Free Methodist Book of Discipline emphasizes the value of human life at all stages. It notes that reproductive technologies raise many “ethical, medical, legal and theological questions even as they offer hope.”

Parker was the founding executive director of what is now called the Alabama Policy Institute, which is associated with the evangelical ministry Focus on the Family. On its website, Focus on the Family recommends that married couples not freeze or discard embryos created during IVF.

Fertility experts say IVF without the option of frozen embryos would likely increase the costs of fertility treatments and reduce the chances for patients trying to have a baby.

A SETBACK FOR THE SECULAR STATE?

Because religious groups have different opinions about when life begins, “it’s quite problematic to see a judge essentially embedding a Christian view into state law,” said Greer Donley, an associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in bioethics and health.

She said that other judges might increasingly apply religious thinking to their decisions.

“It’s particularly notable that (Parker) is not trying to hide that, but even if judges were careful in their language, the result is essentially the same,” Donley said.

Laser, of Americans United, said that even the Alabama court’s majority decision — which does not explicitly reference religion — is problematic; it states that all participants in the case “agree that an unborn child is a genetically unique human being whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death.”

“That is not taking into account everyone this policy is going to be imposed upon, including religious minorities, the nonreligious, Christians who have a different belief system,” Laser said. “It undermines true religious freedom.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation...acsK-fgbL6ezOviG7XDTmP1rQXmMBuhxnXxgnzn0

Treasonist ‘christian’ zealots should be brought to public gallows for display of what happens when you act against the Constitution.

I disagree. I think they have every right to live, believe any way and live by whatever moral standards they so choose. However I do believe their should be safeguards in place that prevents them from inflicting what they believe on everyone else. We see it everywhere.

When you stand on a pulpit and pronounce your disregard of the constitution you’re bordering on treason. Act on it by attacking the institutions that it holds dear… it’s treasonous.

at this point these self described christians are really just agents of hate. this is sick

It appears nothing has changed.

Yep. And when they get their asses handed to them in 24, they’ll employ more violence and hate in another coup attempt. They’ll withdraw into their low-information-echo-chambers and conspiracy think their way to the next election… it’s so damn pathetic you almost hate to slam them for their stupidity and predictability at this point. We tell those sheep what their leaders are going to do to their pearl clutching and gasp of how dare you think like that… then their leaders do the exact crap we warned of and they start looking for the next excuse, anything to cover the blatant fascism, bigotry and hate..

And if anyone wonders how we got here… that’s how.

When and if people on either side of the political aisle break laws they should be held accountable and prosecuted for it. I don't place blanket statements on either side. I certainly point out MAGA's because, well, they're MAGA. But then you see someone like 05 that was a Rebublican until the party went to extremes he could no longer support. There are both good and bad in everything. I know many people that are Christian that do not believe that they have the right to inflict their personal beliefs upon others through force by using legislation as a weapon to do so. I happen to be one of them.

I realize that's probably just a little too moderate for you.

I’ve always been a live and let live type of guy. Not what this fascist movement has caused me to be lately. When this threat is gone, I’ll be that guy again. Until then, no apologies and no relenting.

I'm for holding anyone responsible, responsible. I don't blame who or what I am on what is going on around me. You do you.

Hate AND control. Mainstream Christianity, especially as exemplified on the far right has driven it so far from the original message that it’s become beyond despicable.

As an atheist, I can’t fathom how either stupid or brainwashed a real traditional Christian would have to be to still be involved with this. I can see right through these people and the hate in their hearts. And even hardcore right to lifers have to be like, hold on, wait a minute here… We now have a cult of violent political zealots numbering in the tens of millions wrestling with lady liberty herself herself, to seize power and THE FUTURE of the USA! All while promising to remake our government into a hybrid theocratic autocracy! And some people wonder why it bothers us…

I appreciate that view. I’m a Christian. A catholic even. I’m one of quiet faith. I was Jesuit educated. The same order our pope came from. Even he comes under frequent fire because he introduces things like “Hey, why don’t we focus on love and tolerance versus judgment, fire and brimstone?” The horror that brings based upon the reactions I’ve witnessed.

My sister-in-law is a lesbian. I attended her wedding and love her as though she were my own sister. I celebrated her joyous occasion and was greatly happy for her. You’d think to some, however, that I partied with Satan based on their reactions.

My biggest thing when it comes to the faith is to do my best to accept everyone for who they are and just to try to help them and make the world a better place. What’s ironic is that if one reads the Gospel now, and compares that to society, modern day fundamentalist Christians have become EXACTLY who the villains were in the Gospel.

At some point I believe the Alabama ruling will be struck down.

Or a bunch of idiots will vote in another round of orange turd that’ll let the Christian nationalists continue to turn the screws on such insanity.

To be fair …any idiot knows this is a stupid law as trump agrees.

The memes and cartoons write themselves.

Does an embryo get a tax deduction?

There are tons on line.... It is so sad to see that we have lost all sense of reality and perspective.

I actually do not blame the judges in full. This is what happens when the law is a "life begins at conception" The intended (yep, that is not unintended) consequences are just terrible for women who have difficult pregnancies.

People being mean...