Q&A: Why have anti-abortion activists accidentally banned fertility treatment in Alabama?

Matters of Life and Death

Alabama’s Supreme Court has ruled that embryos in deep freeze, stored as part of IVF treatment, can be considered as legally children. This unexpected judgement has prompted many clinics to shut their doors, fearing lawsuits, as the storage and eventual destruction of surplus embryos is standard practice in IVF. In this episode we reflect on how anti-abortion language written into Alabama law has unintentionally led to this current impasse, and whether there is a tension between how evangelical Christians consider the embryo when it is in the womb versus in a test tube. Later, we respond to criticism from a listener to our discussion earlier this year on the gender gap in church. The BBC News article Tim mentions on the Alabama ruling and responses to it is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68396485 • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com