The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from an Alabama fertility clinic on Monday, which sought to overturn a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that allowed parents to sue the clinic for the wrongful deaths of their embryos.
The justices denied the appeal from the Center for Reproductive Medicine, which was sued by Felicia Burdick-Aysenne and Scott Aysenne in 2021 for wrongful death, after a patient at the hospital where the fertility clinic is located was able to gain unauthorized access to the cryogenic embryo storage area and remove several embryos. The embryos were dropped on the floor and thus destroyed, including the only remaining embryo of Burdick-Ayseene and Aysenne. The couple also sued the hospital.
The state supreme court ruled that the couple’s suit could move forward because their embryos could be considered children under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. As a result of that state Supreme Court ruling, some in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics in Alabama paused their treatments.
Notably, the fertility clinic claimed Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling was a violation of its constitutional right to due process, saying it is “subjecting providers of critical reproductive services to the possibility of unprecedented punitive damages for the virtually inevitable loss of some fertilized eggs or eventual destruction of unused embryos” (emphasis added).
This admission is particularly striking, as so many individuals — even those who consider themselves to be pro-life — support IVF based on the idea that it is used to create life; however, this fertility clinic spelled out the truth: the “loss of some fertilized eggs” (otherwise known as embryos/zygotes, which are no longer “eggs” but new human beings) is “virtually inevitable” during the process of IVF, as is the “eventual destruction of unused embryos.” These are human beings in their embryonic stage of development — and the ones that are created and then frozen may remain “unused” (“leftover” embryos) and are then subject to “eventual destruction.” Remember, this admission is coming directly from the fertility clinic.
The practice of IVF destroys human embryos at a higher rate than induced abortion, as embryos are routinely destroyed.
A survey published by the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics revealed that about 73% of U.S. fertility clinics offer gender selection. Couples can also test their embryos for specific traits they don’t want their children to have, like inherited diseases, and then destroy the ones who do not meet their standards. Embryos are also destroyed for being “extra,” and it is standard practice to discard certain embryos who don’t make the cut, even though it is possible for them to self-correct and survive to full-term delivery.
In declining to take up the case, the Supreme Court allows the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling to stay in place. The lawsuit against the Center for Reproductive Medicine and the hospital where it is located will continue.
