3 COUPLE FILE WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUIT OVER DROPPED FROZEN EMBRYOS AT ALABAMA CLINIC
Fertility clinics exist all over the world these days. And they offer a myriad of services to people who need help starting a family at all, or simply to time it by choice. Yet I’ve never really considered the range of accidents that can happen at a fertility clinic. But if I had, this wouldn’t have made my list. Someone dropped a number of frozen embryos stored in a refrigerating unit at Alabama’s Mobile Medical Center, making them nonviable (meaning no possible babies). And as a result, 3 couples have filed a wrongful death lawsuit over the loss.
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SHOULD WRONGFUL DEATH APPLY? WE’RE TALKING ABOUT DAYS-OLD ZYGOTES HERE, FOLKS
So I’m not sure where I stand on this one, yet. Wrongful death? That seems to be a bit of a reach to me. But saying that, I’m not a future prospective parent who’s biological prospects may be gone forever. Sure, frozen embryos are certainly started pieces of human life. But they’re very small, very frozen ones. We’re talking minuscule, here. And a wrongful death lawsuit over these is much, much, much more interpretively literal than the “heartbeat” furor over abortion. And the latter is pretty out there, as well.
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UNSECURED FREEZER SHOULD DEFINITELY INCLUDE NEGLIGENCE OVER RUINED FROZEN EMBRYOS
But negligence, and a lawsuit strategically involving negligence, makes a lot of sense to me. Because the “someone” who dropped these frozen embryos on the floor was a patient at the Mobile Medical Center. And the embryos stored (and dropped) there were from the nearby Center for Reproductive Medicine. And yes, the Clinic and the Center are co-defendants in the wrongful death lawsuit. But if a patient can leave their room, go to another and open an unsecured storage freezer, negligence makes a lot of sense to me. That should never have happened.
That being said, maybe a new technical legal term will soon apply, the (non) man slaughter charge. So much for putting all your eggs in one basket!
