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.
In each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion and social affairs journalist. We talk about how Christians can better engage with a particular question of life, death or something else in between.
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
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