Alabama's Supreme Court ruling asserting that frozen embryos are "children" will have devastating and far-reaching implications. One of the largest hospitals in the state has already suspended in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments while its administrators weigh the legal risks of the decision—with potentially more clinics and hospitals to follow.
The immediate consequences are earth-shattering for people with infertility who rely on IVF to build their families. It also creates a domino effect that is likely to be felt far beyond Alabama's state lines. Not only does it threaten the future of IVF, but it also further jeopardizes all aspects of reproductive health in a climate where every day anti-abortion proponents are passing dangerous legislation that robs people of their bodily autonomy and criminalizes abortion care.
As a leader of an organization that helped found the movement for Reproductive Justice—the right to have a child, the right not to have a child, and the right to raise our families in safe and sustainable communities—I know that this ruling not only threatens our fundamental freedoms but opens the floodgates for the broader policing of pregnancy. This goes beyond abortion, but it is all part of the same anti-abortion playbook to exert control over our bodies and our lives. How do we know this? "Fetal personhood," which gives more rights to fertilized eggs than pregnant people, has always been the goal of the anti-abortion movement—one they will undoubtedly use to charge people with crimes for simply exerting their right to build their families on their own terms.
The motive of this ruling—and other attacks on reproductive health—is not to "protect" life or grow families, otherwise IVF wouldn't be under threat. It is to punish, criminalize, and take away the rights of pregnant people and put an end to abortion care. This is part of a series of interconnected attacks on reproductive freedom that attempt to give governments and law enforcement total control over our bodies. It will increase targeting for investigation, arrest, and prosecution of people for their pregnancy outcomes—particularly Black and brown people, who are always the first targets for surveillance and criminalization.
We've already seen this in action with Alabama and other states using "fetal personhood" to put people behind bars because of their pregnancy outcomes, including the arrest of a Black woman in Ohio who was charged with felony abuse for miscarrying a nonviable fetus. A 2023 Pregnancy Justice report shows a rise in pregnancy criminalization nationwide over the past decade, with Black people being criminalized at higher rates.
Black women already experience higher rates of infertility, pregnancy-related complications, maternal, and fetal death, and more barriers to care than almost every other racial group. What we need is full access to reproductive care, not punishment. Since the origins of chattel slavery, efforts to control our reproductive health have always been about power rooted in our oppression—and what we're seeing here is no different. The same anti-choice leaders who want to take away our right to bodily autonomy and health care, are the same racist leaders who have been threatening our liberation for generations.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the birth of the Reproductive Justice movement. What's happening in Alabama is why at SisterSong we focus our efforts on building power for our people and fighting back against these dangerous and racist attacks on our bodies, our families, and our communities. We deserve to choose if, when, and how to have children or build families. No one should face arrest or prosecution for making a personal decision about their health care. But we have the power to defeat anti-abortion extremists. States across the country have rejected anti-abortion efforts and affirmed people's constitutional right to abortion. Voters are rejecting government interference in their lives because everyone can agree that no one should have their freedom taken away from them.
We're going to keep calling out the white supremacist agenda that animates the anti-abortion movement and seeks total control over our bodies and our futures. Once we identify that these attacks are all connected—abortion bans, attacks on reproductive health care, criminalizing pregnancy and abortion care—we can fight back to ensure freedom for us all.
Leah Jones is the deputy director of SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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