Alabama gives Biden an unexpected victory with its decision to consider fertilized eggs as people

Pablo PardoWashington Correspondent

Washington Correspondent

Updated Thursday, February 22, 2024-14:55

The state of Alabama has given the Democratic Party and Joe Biden the biggest victory they could hope for: in an unprecedented ruling, the state Supreme Court has declared that fertilized eggs are human beings and, as such, their lives are protected by the Right.

The ruling implies

a radical transformation of in vitro fertilization techniques

, since

several embryos are frequently obtained

in them , one of which is used while the rest are frozen and sometimes

destroyed

.

The legal basis is also impeccable: in 2018, Alabama

amended its Constitution

to include a paragraph stating that "this state recognizes, declares and affirms that it is the public position of this state to

recognize and support the sanctity of human life." born

, and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.

Chief

Justice

Tom Parker explains in his reasoning - in which he concurs with his colleagues - that, under the state Constitution, "1)

God

has made

all people in His image

; 2)

Each person

, therefore, it has

a value that exceeds

the human ability to calculate it; and 3) Human

life cannot be maliciously destroyed

without incurring the holy wrath of God, who sees the destruction of His image as an affront against Him." .

Parker, who

draws on the Bible

,

Saint Thomas Aquinas

, and

several

16th- and 17th-century Protestant theologians to support his decision, is a conservative who maintains

a close relationship with his predecessor in office, Roy Moore

, who achieved national notoriety for his obsession with placing - sometimes even at night - a marble stone weighing one ton with the Ten Commandments in the Supreme Court building, which violated the separation between Church and State in force in the United States since the country's independence in the 19th century. XVIII.

Moore finally left the judiciary to dedicate himself to politics, where he aspired, with the help of Donald Trump, to the position of senator, which he lost when his

penchant for sexually harassing minors

in shopping malls was revealed.

Moore is a strong supporter of Vladimir Putin and, when asked if he believed Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, he replied: "Many say it was the Russians; I believe it was the proverbial hand of God."

Although the ruling

does not mean

de jure

the end of

in vitro

insemination

, it

may be

de facto

, since it forces a change in procedures and

an increase in price

in a country, the United States, where there is no public healthcare and medical costs are high. the main cause of suspensions of citizens' personal payments.

For now, the ruling has had a direct consequence: the

University of Alabama hospital

in the city of Birmingham has

provisionally stopped offering

in vitro

fertilization treatments .

The Alabama decision could have important consequences in the November elections because

it confirms

, at least for once, the

electoral strategy of Joe Biden's team

: letting the campaign for the president's re-election be done by the Republicans and, more specifically, Donald Trump.

And there, everything that refers to the so-called 'reproductive rights' of women plays an absolutely central role.

"The chaos we expected"

So the White House has been quick to take advantage of the decision.

"This is exactly the

kind of chaos

we expected when the

Supreme Court

overturned Roe v. Wade

[the same Court's 1973 ruling that legalized abortion]," Joe Biden's spokesperson Karina said after hearing the decision on Wednesday. Saint-Pierre.

The decision of the federal Supreme Court in July 2022 to allow states to ban abortion was

one of the main reasons that prompted women

to vote in the

legislative elections of that year

, in which the Republicans had everything in their favor to take the majority of the Senate and the House of Representatives and in the end had to settle for a minuscule majority - currently reduced to one seat - in the second of those chambers.

Since the Supreme Court allowed states to decide abortion matters, 11 of the 50 US states have banned abortion in all cases, including rape and incest, while a similar number have drastically cut it.

The

new regulation

is also being

strictly enforced

, to the point that in December a mother of two children, Kate Cox, had to fly from Texas to New Mexico after the Supreme Court of the first of those states banned doctors terminate a pregnancy that jeopardized her ability to have more children in the future.

Now, various groups that support Donald Trump, as well as several advisors to the former president, are drawing up plans to

ban abortion throughout the country

, and even

intrauterine devices

(IUD), although it does not seem that they have a basis to achieve it or that the Republican candidate is willing to take on such a thorny issue.