The Alabama Supreme Court would like to do to marriage equality what it did to IVF

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker
Photo: Tom Parker

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court gave the country a glimpse of the future that Republicans are working toward.

In an entirely predictable and reprehensible ruling, the court ruled that embryos that aren’t even implanted are human beings. The ruling essentially criminalizes in-vitro fertilization (IVF) technology in the state, as unused embryos are destroyed. The court capitalized on the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade, a decision for which Alabama’s Supreme Court Justice had helped pave the way.

The court was ruling in the case of a couple suing an IVF clinic that destroyed the couple’s embryos by accidentally dropping them on the floor. The majority relied upon a 152-year-old law that allowed parents to sue for wrongful death of a child, saying that the law applied to all children, including the unborn and “extrauterine children.”

Mistaking the bench for a pulpit, Chief Justice Tom Parker provided the country with an object lesson in what Christian nationalism looks like.

“Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory,” Parker wrote in his opinion.

Parker is no stranger to applying theocratic principles to a woman’s right to choose. Anti-abortion advocates credit his legal reasoning for building the case that succeeded in striking down Roe v. Wade last year.

But abortion is not the only issue that Parker is focused on. For decades, he has been attacking LGBTQ+ rights. In fact, he won his seat on the state supreme court in 2018 by promising to…

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