--- title: Alabama Supreme Court Rules Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children’ Under State Law | TIME description: The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a decision critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatment in the state. canonical: https://time.com/video/Jse9cThV/ og:title: Alabama Supreme Court Rules Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children’ Under State Law og:description: The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a decision critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatment in the state. og:url: https://time.com/video/Jse9cThV/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Jse9cThV/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Alabama Supreme Court Rules Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children’ Under State Law twitter:description: The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a decision critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatment in the state. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Jse9cThV/poster.jpg?width=720 --- * U.S. # Alabama Supreme Court Rules Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children’ Under State Law > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Alabama Supreme Court Rules Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children’ Under State Law [Watch (HLS stream): Alabama Supreme Court Rules Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children’ Under State Law](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Jse9cThV.m3u8) (4:37)  _Published 2024-02-22. The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a decision critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatment in the state._ --- Feb 22, 2024 11:20 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Lawmakers Call to Protect IVF After Alabama Ruling](/video/DAjNIq8V/) ### Lawmakers Call to Protect IVF After Alabama Ruling [White House Warns Alabama IVF Ruling "Can Spread to Other States"](/video/gPteJHVT/) ### White House Warns Alabama IVF Ruling "Can Spread to Other States" [Know Right Now: Alabama Supreme Court Contradicts Federal Gay Marriage Ruling](/video/c7BY7zFq/) ### Know Right Now: Alabama Supreme Court Contradicts Federal Gay Marriage Ruling --- ## Transcript We got married in June of 2021 in about six months after that we decided we wanted to start trying to have kids and it took us about a little over six months until we were successful at getting pregnant, but we have virtually lost that attempt in May of 2022 and then our second attempt in September of 2022 and then our third attempt in January of 2023. I originally went to Georgia but it ended up just going to be too expensive and hard to travel. So then we decided to do IVF with Alabama fertility and their satellite clinic in Montgomery and I'll take my sister rounds of shots tonight. What did you think when you first heard about this ruling? It was a it was a scary thing. We got the green light to start our meds on Friday, which is the same day that the ruling was made and we found out about that just like the next day from a friend and he started going through all of the social media reading about that IVF could potentially stop here and we just through the weekend to attract Dawn try to digest as best we could but doomsday prep to we started thinking about what we would do if our Clinic shut down just injected so much uncertainty and anxiety into our situation just started freaking out about are we going to be able to continue in that we wasted all this time and money already and Anxiety I had to detach myself from the idea that embryo our children a long time ago. When we were going to this process in our doctor told us that we are going to lose a majority of them and just died a process that's natural. You're going to lose a lot of eggs are not going to come out to being normal and then someone fertilized and then some are not going to make it to two the process of you and being frozen just they'll naturally dye off and if I viewed each of those ones as children, that means that I would have lost just an IVF process a lot of children. That's that's the natural, you know, they be making IVF process so emotionally, I can't view them as children their potential children and they hold a lot of possibilities but in my view They're just possibilities. Originally we both said when we started IVF process, I was actually very worried about having people know that I was going to survive. Yes. I didn't want any of my friends to know I didn't want really any of my family to know I asked everybody who did notice keep. Please keep it quiet. And then where I saw this ruling I got very angry and very hurt that it could said technically stop my my cycle and I just said people need to know that this is affecting couples real life couples. You're trying to start families who are just trying to live the quote on quote American dream and you're stopping us from having a child. We're not trying to her embryos. I don't want to go into a clinic and Destroy everybody's possibilities. I just want my right to have a child to be protected debut protecting embryos. What about our chance of having a family shouldn't that be protected as well? And I would ask them to take a look at our story and how hard of a decision this was for us to even get here and ask themselves if they can look at us and and tell us to to stop over doing. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Alabama Supreme Court Rules Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children’ Under State Law","description":"The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a decision critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatment in the state. ","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Jse9cThV/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2024-02-22T21:59:22.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Jse9cThV.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/Jse9cThV/","duration":"PT4M37S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/Jse9cThV/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```