The Mobile hospital has been asked by two couples from Alabama to declare a state law that protects in vitro fertilization clinics from lawsuits as unconstitutional. The couples’ embryos were destroyed at the hospital, and they are seeking legal action against the clinic.
Last year, the state Legislature passed a law in response to the controversial Alabama Supreme Court ruling, which granted embryos the same legal protections as children under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
James and Emily LePage and William and Caroline Fonde filed a 166-page brief on Monday in Mobile County Circuit Court, arguing that the statutes are unlawful attempts to abrogate rights and remedies that were protected when the People of Alabama voted in November 2018 to amend the Constitution’s Declaration of Rights with constitutional guarantees for unborn children.
The lawyers representing the couples argue that these laws infringe upon the fundamental rights of their clients, including their right to life, the right to raise and nurture their children, and the right to equal protection under Alabama law.
According to the attorneys, the legislation violated various provisions of the Alabama Constitution, including the right to remedy and the right to protect the couples’ claims from retroactive legislation.
The couples made it clear in the brief that unborn children outside the womb and their parents must not be stripped of the legal protections and remedies provided by Alabama law, as well as the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. Their statement was concise: the legislature has no authority to do so.
In 2021, separate lawsuits were filed against the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Mobile Infirmary Medical Center by the LePages, Fondes, and Scott Aysenne and Felicia Burdic-Aysenne. The lawsuits claimed wrongful death, negligence, and breach of contract.
A hospital patient who accidentally dropped the frozen embryos destroyed the precious specimens belonging to the couples.
The LePages and Fondes are requesting Judge Jill Parrish Phillips of the Mobile County Circuit Court to declare the IVF law as unconstitutional.
In a previous ruling, this judge had sided against a couple, stating that frozen embryos cannot be considered children, and subsequently dismissed their wrongful death claim.
The judge stated in her ruling that Alabama’s laws and legal precedents show that a deep respect for the value of life has not hindered the state’s Supreme Court from acknowledging and supporting the legislature’s consistent use of the term “in utero” [emphasis original] to describe an unborn or minor child, even in the context of a wrongful death case.
The Alabama Supreme Court made a controversial ruling that resulted in the reversal of her decision.
National headlines were drawn and IVF clinics halted their operations due to the high court’s decision, which caused backlash and prosecution fears.
At the same time, IVF clinics were granted legal protection by the Alabama Legislature through the passage of new legislation.