johnu, on 2024-March-02, 18:57, said:
I don't know about SCOTUS, but the House QOP have introduced HR 431 which codifies the Alabama supreme court ruling into law. There are 124 QOP co-sponsors of the bill.
My guess is that if SCOTUS does take the case, they will uphold the Alabama ruling because that's what the 6 QOP justices do since they don't have to answer to voters.
What's to appeal? The Alabama legislature passed a dumb law (granting embryos the rights of humans) but the state supreme court made a very logical ruling given that law. If the Alabama legislature were to pass a law granting broccoli the rights of humans, this would make anyone eating broccoli guilty of cannibalism. Again, dumb law, but I don't see why it would necessarily be unconstitutional.
In fact this ruling seems more clear than consequences regarding abortion -- even if embryos have the rights of humans, it doesn't necessarily follow that adults are obligated to involuntarily loan their organs to the embryos, or to risk their long-term health gestating them. But embryos created and stored for IVF don't incur the same potential violations of privacy and bodily autonomy or the same health risks to adult humans.
If the Alabama legislature doesn't like this ruling, they could easily repeal their foetal personhood bill or amend it to "only after six weeks gestation in a uterus" or something like that. But the fact that many Republicans are cheering this ruling (and that many Democrats have been warning about it for years) suggests that it's no surprise to anyone.
Adam W. Meyerson
a.k.a. Appeal Without Merit