Republicans aren’t content with just forcing women to give birth, they are intent on controlling all facets of reproductive healthcare, as we’re seeing in Alabama

Friends, Romans, frozen extrauterine children, lend me your ears. Except for the extrauterine children, that is – they obviously don’t have ears. Nor do they have fully formed brains, nervous systems or organs. Nevertheless, according to Alabama’s supreme court – in a decision which has which paved the way for two wrongful death suits to proceed against a fertility clinic – frozen embryos are “children” and should be treated as such.

So what does this mean? Well, in the immediate term it means that if you’re going through fertility treatments in Alabama your life just got upended. Numerous embryos tend to be created and then frozen during the IVF process because it maximizes the chances of success, is more cost-effective and reduces the health risks of the procedure. Surplus embryos are then disposed of or donated. If every frozen embryo is suddenly deemed a child, it means that disposing of the embryo – or having a machine malfunction and accidentally ruin an embryo – would be a criminal act. It even throws into question the standard practice of freezing embryos. After all, you wouldn’t stick a child in a freezer, would you?

In short, a handful of Republican judges in Alabama have effectively made IVF too legally dangerous to practice in the state. Already at least three fertility providers in Alabama have said that they are pausing IVF because of the risks. This is unbelievably cruel to people currently going through fertility treatments that, even in the best of times, can take a major emotional, physical and financial toll.