Case Title: LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 2024-02-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
Rel: February 16, 2024 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern 
Reporter.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 
300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other 
errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter. 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA 
 
OCTOBER TERM, 2023-2024 
 
_________________________ 
 
SC-2022-0515 
_________________________ 
 
James LePage and Emily LePage, individually and as parents 
and next friends of two deceased LePage embryos, Embryo A 
and Embryo B; and William Tripp Fonde and Caroline Fonde, 
individually and as parents and next friends of two deceased 
Fonde embryos, Embryo C and Embryo D  
 
v.  
 
The Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C., and 
Mobile Infirmary Association d/b/a Mobile Infirmary Medical 
Center 
 
 
Appeal from Mobile Circuit Court 
(CV-21-901607) 
 
 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
2 
 
 
_________________________ 
 
SC-2022-0579 
_________________________ 
 
Felicia Burdick-Aysenne and Scott Aysenne, in their individual 
capacities and as parents and next friends of Baby Aysenne, 
deceased embryo/minor  
 
v.  
 
The Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C., and Mobile 
Infirmary Association d/b/a Mobile Infirmary Medical Center 
 
 
 
Appeal from Mobile Circuit Court 
(CV-21-901640) 
 
 
MITCHELL, Justice.1 
 
 This Court has long held that unborn children are "children" for 
purposes of Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, § 6-5-391, Ala. 
Code 1975, a statute that allows parents of a deceased child to recover 
punitive damages for their child's death.  The central question presented 
in these consolidated appeals, which involve the death of embryos kept 
 
1These consolidated appeals were originally assigned to another 
Justice on this Court; they were reassigned to Justice Mitchell on 
December 15, 2023. 
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in a cryogenic nursery, is whether the Act contains an unwritten 
exception to that rule for extrauterine children -- that is, unborn children 
who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed.  
Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the 
Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless 
of their location.  
Facts and Procedural History 
The plaintiffs in these consolidated appeals are the parents of 
several embryonic children, each of whom was created through in vitro 
fertilization ("IVF") and -- until the incident giving rise to these cases -- 
had been kept alive in a cryogenic nursery while they awaited 
implantation.  James LePage and Emily LePage are the parents of two 
embryos whom they call "Embryo A" and "Embryo B"; William Tripp 
Fonde and Caroline Fonde are the parents of two other embryos called 
"Embryo C" and "Embryo D"; and Felicia Burdick-Aysenne and Scott 
Aysenne are the parents of one embryo called "Baby Aysenne."   
Between 2013 and 2016, each set of parents went to a fertility clinic 
operated by the Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C. ("the Center"), to 
undergo IVF treatments.  During those treatments, doctors were able to 
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help the plaintiffs conceive children by joining the mother's eggs and the 
father's sperm "in vitro" -- that is, outside the mother's body.  The Center 
artificially gestated each embryo to "a few days" of age and then placed 
the embryos in the Center's "cryogenic nursery," which is a facility 
designed to keep extrauterine embryos alive at a fixed stage of 
development by preserving them at an extremely low temperature.  The 
parties agree that, if properly safeguarded, an embryo can remain alive 
in a cryogenic nursery "indefinitely" -- several decades, perhaps longer.  
The plaintiffs' IVF treatments led to the creation of several 
embryos, some of which were implanted and resulted in the births of 
healthy babies. The plaintiffs contracted to have their remaining 
embryos kept in the Center's cryogenic nursery, which was located within 
the same building as the local hospital, the Mobile Infirmary Medical 
Center ("the Hospital").  The Hospital is owned and operated by the 
Mobile Infirmary Association ("the Association"). 
The plaintiffs allege that the Center was obligated to keep the 
cryogenic nursery secured and monitored at all times.  But, in December 
2020, a patient at the Hospital managed to wander into the Center's 
fertility clinic through an unsecured doorway.  The patient then entered 
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the cryogenic nursery and removed several embryos.  The subzero 
temperatures at which the embryos had been stored freeze-burned the 
patient's hand, causing the patient to drop the embryos on the floor, 
killing them.   
The plaintiffs brought two lawsuits against the Center and the 
Association. The first suit was brought jointly by the LePages and the 
Fondes; the second was brought by the Aysennes.  Each set of plaintiffs 
asserted claims under Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, § 6-5-
391.  In the alternative, each set of plaintiffs asserted common-law claims 
of negligence (in the LePages and Fondes' case) or negligence and 
wantonness (in the Aysennes' case), for which they sought compensatory 
damages, including damages for mental anguish and emotional distress.  
The plaintiffs specified, however, that their common-law claims were 
pleaded "in the alternative, and only [apply] should the Courts of this 
State or the United States Supreme Court ultimately rule that [an 
extrauterine embryo] is not a minor child, but is instead property."  In 
addition to those claims, the Aysennes brought breach-of-contract and 
bailment claims against the Center. 
The Center and the Association filed joint motions in each case 
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asking the trial court to dismiss the plaintiffs' wrongful-death and 
negligence/wantonness claims against them in accordance with Rules 
12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), Ala. R. Civ. P.   The trial court granted those 
motions.  In each of its judgments, the trial court explained its view that 
"[t]he cryopreserved, in vitro embryos involved in this case do not fit 
within the definition of a 'person'" or "'child,'" and it therefore held that 
their loss could not give rise to a wrongful-death claim.  
The trial court also concluded that the plaintiffs' negligence and 
wantonness claims could not proceed.  Specifically, the court reasoned 
that, to the extent those claims sought recovery for the value of embryonic 
children, the claims were barred by Alabama's longstanding prohibition 
on the recovery of compensatory damages for loss of human life.  And to 
the extent the claims sought emotional-distress damages, the trial court 
said that they were barred by the traditional limits to Alabama's "zone of 
danger test," which "limits recovery for emotional injury only to plaintiffs 
who sustained a physical injury … or were placed in immediate risk of 
physical harm …."   
 
The trial court's judgments disposed entirely of the LePages' and 
the Fondes' claims, and left the Aysennes with only their breach-of-
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contract and bailment claims.  The Aysennes asked the trial court to 
certify its judgment as final under Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P., which the 
trial court did.  Both sets of plaintiffs appealed. 
Standard of Review 
 
We review a trial court's judgment granting a motion to dismiss de 
novo, without any presumption of correctness.  Hawkins v. Ivey, 365 So. 
3d 1058, 1060 (Ala. 2022). 
Analysis 
 
The parties to these cases have raised many difficult questions, 
including ones about the ethical status of extrauterine children, the 
application of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to 
such children, and the public-policy implications of treating extrauterine 
children as human beings.  But the Court today need not address these 
questions because, as explained below, the relevant statutory text is 
clear: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies on its face to all unborn 
children, without limitation.  That language resolves the only issue on 
appeal with respect to the plaintiffs' wrongful-death claims and renders 
moot their common-law negligence and wantonness claims.   
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A. Wrongful-Death Claims 
Before analyzing the parties' disagreement about the scope of the 
Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, we begin by explaining some background 
points of agreement.  All parties to these cases, like all members of this 
Court, agree that an unborn child is a genetically unique human being 
whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death. The parties further 
agree that an unborn child usually qualifies as a "human life," "human 
being," or "person," as those words are used in ordinary conversation and 
in the text of Alabama's wrongful-death statutes.  That is true, as 
everyone acknowledges, throughout all stages of an unborn child's 
development, regardless of viability.   
The question on which the parties disagree is whether there exists 
an unwritten exception to that rule for unborn children who are not 
physically located "in utero" -- that is, inside a biological uterus -- at the 
time they are killed.  The defendants argue that this Court should 
recognize such an exception because, they say, an unborn child ceases to 
qualify as a "child or "person" if that child is not contained within a 
biological womb.  
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The plaintiffs, for their part, argue that the proposed exception for 
extrauterine children would introduce discontinuity within Alabama law.  
They contend, for example, that the defendants' proposed exception 
would deprive parents of any civil remedy against someone who kills 
their unborn child in a "partial-birth" posture -- that is, after the child 
has left the uterus but before the child has been fully delivered from the 
birth canal -- despite this State's longstanding criminal prohibition on 
partial-birth abortion, see Ala. Code 1975, § 26-23-3.   
The plaintiffs also argue that the defendants' proposed exception 
would raise serious constitutional questions.  For instance, one latent 
implication of the defendants' position -- though not one that the 
defendants seem to have anticipated -- is that, under the defendants' test, 
even a full-term infant or toddler conceived through IVF and gestated to 
term in an in vitro environment would not qualify as a "child" or "person," 
because such a child would both be (1) "unborn" (having never been 
delivered from a biological womb) and (2) not "in utero."2  And if such 
 
2Until recently, there had been a longstanding ethical norm against 
artificially gestating human embryos past 14 days of development.  
Henry T. Greely, The 14-Day Embryo Rule: A Modest Proposal, 22 Hous. 
J. Health L. & Pol'y 147 (2022).  But that norm is wavering, and there is 
currently nothing stopping "researchers from allowing ex vivo [that is, 
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children were not legal "children" or "persons," then their lives would be 
unprotected by Alabama law.  The plaintiffs argue that this sort of 
unequal treatment would offend the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th 
Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits states 
from withholding legal protection from people based on immutable 
features of their birth or ancestry.  See Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. 
v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 208 (2023) 
("'Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by 
their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded 
upon the doctrine of equality.'" (citations omitted)).3 
 
extrauterine] human embryos to develop for eight or nine weeks post-
fertilization .... Or to viability .... Or, for that matter, to 38 weeks post-
fertilization and full term."  Id. at 154-55; see also Kirstin R.W. Matthews 
& Daniel Morali, National Human Embryo and Embryoid Research 
Policies: A Survey of 22 Top Research-intensive Countries, 15 
Regenerative Med. 1905 (2020) ("While the USA was the first to propose 
the 14-day limit, the limit was never passed as a federal law.").  There 
are, of course, practical limitations on developing extrauterine embryos 
to term, but those limitations are shrinking each year due to 
"technological advances."  See Matthews & Morali, 15 Regenerative Med. 
at 1905. 
 
3In his dissenting opinion, Justice Cook appears to concede that the 
life of a fully developed child who was conceived and gestated in vitro 
would not be protected under his and the defendants' reading of the 
Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.  See ___ So. 3d at ____ n.55 (arguing  that 
"the Legislature" would have to intervene to protect the lives of any 
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These are weighty concerns.  But these cases do not require the 
Court to resolve them because, as explained below, neither the text of the 
Wrongful Death of a Minor Act nor this Court's precedents exclude 
extrauterine children from the Act's coverage.  Unborn children are 
"children" under the Act, without exception based on developmental 
stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.         
1.  The Text of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act Applies to 
All Children, Without Exception   
First enacted in 1872, the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act allows the 
parents of a deceased child to bring a claim seeking punitive damages 
"[w]hen the death of a minor child is caused by the wrongful act, 
omission, or negligence of any person," provided that they do so within 
six months of the child's passing.  § 6-5-391(a).   The Act does not define 
either "child" or "minor child," but this Court held in Mack v. Carmack, 
79 So. 3d 597 (Ala. 2011), that an unborn child qualifies as a "minor child" 
under the Act, regardless of that child's viability or stage of development.  
Id. at 611.  We reaffirmed that conclusion in Hamilton v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 
728 (Ala. 2012), explaining that "Alabama's wrongful-death statute 
 
children created with these "future technologies").  Justice Cook does not, 
however, discuss the constitutional implications of that position.   
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allows an action to be brought for the wrongful death of any unborn 
child."  Id. at 735. 
None of the parties before us contest the holdings in Mack and 
Hamilton,4 and for good reason: the ordinary meaning of "child" includes 
children who have not yet been born.  "This Court's most cited dictionary 
defines 'child' as 'an unborn or recently born person,'" Ex parte Ankrom, 
152 So. 3d 397, 431 (Ala. 2013) (Shaw, J., concurring in part and 
concurring in the result) (citing Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 
 
4Justice Cook raises several novel arguments, none of which were 
briefed or mentioned by the parties, in support of his view that "the public 
meaning of 'minor child' as used in the Wrongful Death [of a Minor] Act 
did not include an unborn infant."  ___ So. 3d at ____ (Cook, J., 
dissenting).  If Justice Cook were correct on that point, then it would 
mean that Mack erred by interpreting the Act to protect unborn children.  
For the reasons given in this section of the opinion, we are not persuaded 
that the unborn were excluded from the original meaning of the term 
"child."  But even if Justice Cook were correct on that point, the Court 
would still apply Mack's definition because, as Justice Cook himself 
acknowledges, no party has challenged the Mack line of cases.  See id. at 
___ (Cook, J., dissenting) (emphasizing that this Court does not overrule 
precedent unless asked to do so by the parties and explaining that "the 
parties [here] have neither asserted that the holdings or reasoning in 
either Mack or Stinnett [v. Kennedy, 232 So. 3d 202 (Ala. 2016),] are 
wrong, nor have they asked us to overrule those decisions").  We are 
perplexed by Justice Cook's insistence that we have not given Mack due 
deference when the bulk of his dissent is animated by the view that Mack 
was wrongly decided and that, contrary to its holding, unborn children 
are not "children" under the Act after all. 
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214 (11th ed. 2003)), and all other mainstream dictionaries are in accord.  
See, e.g., 3 The Oxford English Dictionary 113 (2d ed. 1989) (defining 
"child" as an "unborn or newly born human being; foetus, infant"); 
Webster's Third New International Dictionary 388 (2002) (defining 
"child" as "an unborn or recently born human being").  There is simply no 
"patent or latent ambiguity in the word 'child'; it is not a term of art and 
contains no inherent uncertainty."  Ankrom, 152 So. 3d at 431 (Shaw, J., 
concurring in part and concurring in the result). 
The parties have given us no reason to doubt that the same was 
true in 1872, when the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act first became law.  
See Act No. 62, Ala. Acts 1871-72 (codified at § 2899, Ala. Code 1876).  
Indeed, the leading dictionary of that time defined the word "child" as 
"the immediate progeny of parents" and indicated that this term 
encompassed children in the womb.  Noah Webster et al., An American 
Dictionary of the English Language 198 (1864) ("[t]o be with child 
[means] to be pregnant").5  And Blackstone's Commentaries, the leading 
 
5As Justice Cook points out, this entry goes on to explain that the 
term "child" is "applied to infants from their birth; but the time when 
they cease ordinarily to be so called, is not defined by custom."  ___ So. 
3d at ____ (Cook, J., dissenting).  Justice Cook believes that this language 
indicates that infants prior to birth were not considered "children."  We 
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authority on the common law, expressly grouped the rights of unborn 
children with the "Rights of Persons," consistently described unborn 
children as "infant[s]" or "child[ren]," and spoke of such children as 
sharing in the same right to life that is "inherent by nature in every 
individual."  1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of 
England 125-26.6  Those expressions are in keeping with the United 
 
disagree.  The language quoted by Justice Cook contrasts newborns with 
older children in order to make the point that there is no clear-cut time 
at which a young person transitions from childhood to adulthood; it does 
not indicate that infants were considered something other than children 
prior to their birth, as the definition elsewhere makes clear when it 
describes a pregnant woman as being "with child."  Another definition on 
that same page further drives home the point that unborn children are 
"children" when it describes "childbearing" as the act of "bearing 
children" in the womb.   
 
6It is true, as Justice Cook emphasizes, that the common law spared 
defendants from criminal-homicide liability for killing an unborn child 
unless the prosecution could prove that the child had been "born alive" 
before dying from its injuries.  But the criminal law has always been "out 
of step with the treatment of prenatal life in other areas of law," in that 
it generally prioritizes lenity towards the accused over the otherwise 
applicable "'civil rights'" of unborn children.  Dobbs v. Jackson Women's 
Health Org., 597 U.S. 215, 247 (2022) (citation omitted).  Accordingly, the 
born-alive safe harbor appears to have operated primarily as an 
evidentiary rule rather than as a substantive limitation on personhood.  
Joanne Pedone, Filling the Void: Model Legislation for Fetal Homicide 
Crimes, 43 Colum. J. L. & Soc. Probs. 77, 82 (2009) (explaining that the 
function of the born-alive rule was "to make sure the government 
established causation before obtaining a homicide conviction," during an 
era in which "'the state of medical science'" was primitive and in which 
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States Supreme Court's recent observation that, even as far back as the 
18th century, the unborn were widely recognized as living persons with 
rights and interests.    See Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org., 597 
U.S. 215, 246-48 (2022). 
Courts interpreting statutes are required to give words their 
"'"natural, ordinary, commonly understood meaning,"'" unless there is 
some textual indication that an unusual or technical meaning applies.   
Swindle v. Remington, 291 So. 3d 439, 457 (Ala. 2019) (citations omitted).  
Here, the parties have not pointed us to any such indication, which 
reflects the overwhelming consensus in this State that an unborn child is 
just as much a "child" under the law as he or she is a "child" in everyday 
conversation.   
Even if the word "child" were ambiguous, however, the Alabama 
Constitution would require courts to resolve the ambiguity in favor of 
 
proving causation for prenatal injuries was difficult (quoting Clarke D. 
Forsythe, Homicide of the Unborn Child: The Born Alive Rule and Other 
Legal Anachronisms, 21 Val. U. L. Rev. 563, 586 (1987))).  Like the so-
called "quickening rule," the born-alive rule ensured that there was 
"'evidence of life,'" but did not provide a definition of life, and did not 
mean that unborn children were considered to be something other than 
living human beings.  Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 246 (citation omitted); see also 
Forsythe, supra, at 586 & n.105. 
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protecting unborn life.  Article I, § 36.06(b), of the Constitution of 2022 
"acknowledges, declares, and affirms that it is the public policy of this 
state to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all 
manners and measures lawful and appropriate."  That section, which is 
titled "Sanctity of Unborn Life," operates in this context as a 
constitutionally imposed canon of construction, directing courts to 
construe ambiguous statutes in a way that "protect[s] … the rights of the 
unborn child" equally with the rights of born children, whenever such 
construction is "lawful and appropriate."  Id.7  When it comes to the 
Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, that means coming down on the side of 
 
7Justice Cook argues that § 36.06 should not inform our analysis 
because, he contends, that provision "cannot retroactively change the 
meaning of words passed in 1872."  ___ So. 3d at ___ (Cook, J., dissenting).  
But as part of our Constitution, § 36.06 represents "the supreme law of 
the state,"  meaning that all statutes "must yield" to it, whether or not 
they were enacted prior to its adoption.  Alexander v. State ex rel. Carver, 
274 Ala. 441, 446, 150 So. 2d 204, 208 (1963).  Further, the definition of 
"child" that we apply here is in keeping with the definition that was 
established by this Court's precedents at the time § 36.06 was adopted.  
See Mack, 79 So. 3d at 611 ("[W]e hold that the Wrongful Death Act 
permits an action for the death of a previable fetus."); Hamilton, 97 So. 
3d at 735 ("As set forth in Mack and as applicable in this case, Alabama's 
wrongful-death statute allows an action to be brought for the wrongful 
death of any unborn child.").  It is Justice Cook's opinion, not this Court's, 
that seeks to set aside that meaning in favor of the view that the term 
"child," as originally understood, did not encompass "an unborn infant."  
See ___ So. 3d at ___ (Cook, J., dissenting).   
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including, rather than excluding, children who have not yet been born.   
The upshot here is that the phrase "minor child" means the same 
thing in the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act as it does in everyday 
parlance: "an unborn or recently born" individual member of the human 
species, from fertilization until the age of majority.  See Merriam-
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 214 (11th ed. 2020) (defining "child"); 
accord Noah Webster et al., An American Dictionary of the English 
Language 198 (defining "child").  Nothing about the Act narrows that 
definition to unborn children who are physically "in utero."  Instead, the 
Act provides a cause of action for the death of any "minor child," without 
exception or limitation.  As this Court observed in Hamilton, "Alabama's 
wrongful-death statute allows an action to be brought for the wrongful 
death of any unborn child."  97 So. 3d at 735 (emphasis added). 
2.  This Court's Precedents Do Not Compel Creation of an 
Unwritten Exception for Extrauterine Children 
The defendants do not meaningfully engage with the text or history 
of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.  Instead, they ask us to recognize 
an unwritten exception for extrauterine children in the wrongful-death 
context because, they say, our own precedents compel that outcome.  
Specifically, the defendants argue that: (1) this Court's precedents 
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require complete congruity between "the definition of who is a person" 
under our criminal-homicide laws and "the definition of who is a person" 
under our civil wrongful-death laws; (2) extrauterine children are not 
within the class of persons protected by our criminal-homicide laws; and 
(3) as a result, extrauterine children cannot be protected by the Wrongful 
Death of a Minor Act.  Appellees' brief in appeal no. SC-2022-0579 at 47; 
Appellees' brief in appeal no. SC-2022-0515 at 49.   
The most immediate problem with the defendants' argument is that 
its major premise is unsound:8 nothing in this Court's precedents 
requires one-to-one congruity between the classes of people protected by 
Alabama's criminal-homicide laws and our civil wrongful-death laws.  
The defendants' error stems from their misreading of this Court's 
opinions in Mack and Stinnett v. Kennedy, 232 So. 3d 202 (Ala. 2016).  
As mentioned earlier, Mack held, based on "numerous considerations," 
that previable unborn children qualify as "children" under the Wrongful 
Death of a Minor Act.  79 So. 3d at 611.  One of those considerations 
involved the fact that Alabama's criminal-homicide laws -- as amended 
 
8The plaintiffs argue that both premises are faulty, but since we 
agree that the first is wrong, we have no need to reach the second. 
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by the Brody Act, Act No. 2006-419, Ala. Acts 2006 -- expressly included 
(and continues to include) unborn children as "'person[s],'" "'regardless 
of viability.'"  79 So. 3d at 600 (quoting Ala. Code 1975, § 13A-6-1(a)(3)).  
The Mack Court noted that it would be "'incongruous' if 'a defendant 
could be responsible criminally for the homicide of a fetal child but would 
have no similar responsibility civilly.'"  79 So. 3d at 611 (citation 
omitted).   Stinnett echoed that reasoning.  See 232 So. 3d at 215. 
The defendants interpret the "incongruity" language in Mack and 
Stinnett to mean that the definition of "child" in the Wrongful Death of a 
Minor Act must precisely mirror the definition of "person" in our 
criminal-homicide laws.  But the main opinions in Mack and Stinnett did 
not say that.  Those opinions simply observed that it would be perverse 
for Alabama law to hold a defendant criminally liable for killing an 
unborn child while immunizing the defendant from civil liability for the 
same offense.  The reason that such a result would be anomalous is 
because criminal liability is, by its nature, more severe than civil liability 
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-- so the set of conduct that can support a criminal prosecution is almost 
always narrower than the conduct that can support a civil suit.9   
The defendants flip that reasoning on its head.  Instead of 
concluding that civil-homicide laws should sweep at least as broadly as 
criminal ones (as Mack and Stinnett reasoned), the defendants insist that 
the civil law can never sweep more broadly than the criminal law.   That 
type of maneuver is not only illogical, it was rejected in Stinnett itself:   
"[Mack's] attempt to harmonize who is a 'person' 
protected from homicide under both the Homicide Act and 
Wrongful Death Act, however, was never intended to 
synchronize civil and criminal liability under those acts, or 
the defenses to such liability. Although we noted that it 
would be unfair for a tortfeasor to be subject to criminal 
punishment, but not civil liability, for fetal homicide, it 
simply does not follow that a person not subject to criminal 
punishment under the Homicide Act should not face tort 
liability under the Wrongful Death Act. This argument, 
followed to its logical conclusion, would prohibit wrongful-
death actions arising from a tortfeasor's simple negligence, 
something we have never held to be criminally punishable 
but which often forms the basis of wrongful-death actions." 
232 So. 3d at 215.  As this passage from Stinnett makes clear, the 
definition of "person" in criminal-homicide law provides a floor for the 
 
9This reality also helps to illustrate why it is wrong to assume that 
the prospect of civil liability for the mishandling of embryos necessarily 
raises the spectre of criminal liability for the same conduct.      
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definition of personhood in wrongful-death actions, not a ceiling.  So even 
if it is true, as the defendants argue, that individuals cannot be convicted 
of criminal homicide for causing the death of extrauterine embryos (a 
question we have no occasion to reach), it would not follow that they must 
also be immune from civil liability for the same conduct.   
3. The Defendants' Public-Policy Concerns Cannot Override 
Statutory Text 
 
 Finally, the defendants and their amicus devote large portions of 
their briefs to emphasizing undesirable public-policy outcomes that, they 
say, will arise if this Court does not create an exception to wrongful-death 
liability for extrauterine children.  In particular, they assert that treating 
extrauterine children as "children" for purposes of wrongful-death 
liability will "substantially increase the cost of IVF in Alabama" and 
could make cryogenic preservation onerous.  Medical Association of the 
State of Alabama amicus brief at 42; see also Appellees' brief in appeal 
no. SC-2022-0515 at 36 (arguing that "costs and storage issues would be 
prohibitive"). 
While we appreciate the defendants' concerns, these types of policy-
focused arguments belong before the Legislature, not this Court.  Judges 
are required to conform our rulings "to the expressions of the legislature, 
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to the letter of the statute," and to the Constitution, "without indulging 
a speculation, either upon the impolicy, or the hardship, of the law."  
Priestman v. United States, 4 U.S. (4 Dall.) 28, 30 n.1 in the reporter's 
synopsis (1800) (Chase, J., writing for the federal circuit court).   
Here, the text of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and 
unqualified.  It applies to all children, born and unborn, without 
limitation.  It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based 
on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy.  That is especially 
true where, as here, the People of this State have adopted a 
Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from 
excluding "unborn life" from legal protection.  Art. I, § 36.06, Ala. Const. 
2022.10    
 
10The defendants also suggest that, if extrauterine children are 
accorded the same protections under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act 
as unborn children in utero, then providers could be held liable for 
routine treatment of ectopic pregnancies -- that is, pregnancies in which 
an embryo has implanted in an organ other than the uterus, such as the 
fallopian tubes.   
 
The defendants' concerns are misguided.  As the parties 
acknowledge, ectopic pregnancies almost invariably involve a fatal 
medical condition: if left in place, the ectopic embryo will either die from 
malnourishment or else grow to the point where it kills the mother -- in 
turn causing the embryo's own death.  The parties agree that there is 
currently no way to treat an ectopic implantation without simultaneously 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
23 
 
B. Negligence and Wantonness Claims  
The second question raised in these consolidated appeals is whether 
the trial court erred in dismissing the plaintiffs' common-law negligence 
and wantonness claims.  As discussed above, both sets of plaintiffs made 
clear in their operative complaints that those claims were "alternative" 
theories pleaded only as a fallback in case this Court held that 
extrauterine children are not protected by the Wrongful Death of a Minor 
Act.  Since we now hold that the Act does protect extrauterine children, 
the plaintiffs' alternative negligence and wantonness claims are moot, 
and we affirm the trial court's dismissal of those claims on that basis.   
C.  Remaining Issues 
During oral argument in these cases, the defendants suggested that 
the plaintiffs may be either contractually or equitably barred from 
pursuing wrongful-death claims.  In particular, the defendants pointed 
out that all the plaintiffs signed contracts with the Center in which their 
 
causing the death of the unborn child, no matter how desperately the 
surgeon and the parents wish to preserve the child's life.  In light of that 
tragic reality, we do not see how any hypothetical plaintiffs who attempt 
to sue over the consensual removal of an ectopic pregnancy could 
establish the core elements of a wrongful-death claim, including breach 
of duty and causation.   
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
24 
 
embryonic children were, in many respects, treated as nonhuman 
property: the Fondes elected in their contract to automatically "destroy" 
any embryos that had remained frozen longer than five years; the 
LePages chose to donate similar embryos to medical researchers whose 
projects would "result in the destruction of the embryos"; and the 
Aysennes agreed to allow any "abnormal embryos" created through IVF 
to be experimented on for "research" purposes and then "discarded."  The 
defendants contended at oral argument that these provisions are 
fundamentally incompatible with the plaintiffs' wrongful-death claims.   
If the defendants are correct on that point, then they may be able 
to invoke waiver, estoppel, or similar affirmative defenses.  But those 
defenses have not been briefed and were not considered by the trial court, 
so we will not attempt to resolve them here.  We are "a court of review, 
not a court of first instance."  Henry v. White, 222 Ala. 228, 228, 131 So. 
899, 899 (1931).   The trial court remains free to consider these and any 
other outstanding issues on remand.   
Conclusion 
 
We reverse the trial court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' wrongful-
death claims in both appeal no. SC-2022-0515 and appeal no. SC-2022-
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
25 
 
0579. Because the plaintiffs' alternative negligence and wantonness 
claims are now moot, we affirm the trial court's dismissal of those claims 
on that basis.   
SC-2022-0515 -- AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, 
AND REMANDED. 
SC-2022-0579 -- AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, 
AND REMANDED. 
Wise and Bryan, JJ., concur. 
Parker, C.J., concurs specially, with opinion.  
Shaw, J., concurs specially, with opinion, which Stewart, J., joins. 
Mendheim, J., concurs in the result, with opinion. 
Sellers, J., concurs in the result in part and dissents in part, with 
opinion. 
Cook, J., dissents, with opinion.  
 
 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
26 
 
PARKER, Chief Justice (concurring specially). 
 
A good judge follows the Constitution instead of policy, except when 
the Constitution itself commands the judge to follow a certain policy. In 
these cases, that means upholding the sanctity of unborn life, including 
unborn life that exists outside the womb. Our state Constitution contains 
the following declaration of public policy: "This state acknowledges, 
declares, and affirms that it is the public policy of this state to recognize 
and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, 
including the right to life." Art. I, § 36.06(a), Ala. Const. 2022 (adopted 
Nov. 6, 2018) (sometimes referred to as "the Sanctity of Unborn Life 
Amendment"). As noted in the main opinion, these cases involve unborn 
life -- a fact that no party in these cases disputes. Therefore, I take this 
opportunity to examine the meaning of the term "sanctity of unborn life" 
as used in § 36.06 and to explore the legal effect of the adoption of the 
Sanctity of Unborn Life Amendment as a constitutional statement of 
public policy. 
I. Meaning of "Sanctity" 
 
 The Alabama Constitution does not expressly define the phrase 
"sanctity of unborn life." But because the parties have raised § 36.06 in 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
27 
 
their arguments, these cases call for us to interpret what this phrase 
means. The goal of constitutional interpretation is to discern the original 
public meaning, which is "'the meaning the people understood a 
provision to have at the time they enacted it.'" Barnett v. Jones, 338 So. 
3d 757, 767 (Ala. 2021) (Mitchell, J., joined by Parker, C.J., concurring 
specially) (citation and emphasis omitted). Constitutional interpretation 
must start with the text, but it also must include the context of the time 
in which it was adopted. Id.; see also Hagan v. Commissioner's Court of 
Limestone Cnty., 160 Ala. 544, 554, 49 So. 417, 420 (1909) (holding that 
the Alabama Constitution "must be understood and enforced according 
to the plain, common-sense meaning of its terms"); Antonin Scalia, A 
Matter of Interpretation 37 (new ed. 2018) ("In textual interpretation, 
context is everything, and the context of the Constitution tells us not to 
expect nit-picking detail, and to give words and phrases an expansive 
rather than narrow interpretation -- though not an interpretation that 
the language will not bear.").  
Helpful sources in interpretation include contemporaneous 
dictionaries, but the analysis must also "draw from deeper wells" instead 
of relying "solely on dictionaries." Gulf Shores City Bd. of Educ. v. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
28 
 
Mackey, [Ms. 1210353, Dec. 22, 2022] ___ So. 3d ____, ____ (Ala. 2022) 
(Parker, C.J., concurring in part and concurring in the result). Such 
"deeper wells" include (1) the history of the period, (2) similar provisions 
in predecessor constitutions, (3) the records of the constitutional 
convention, inasmuch as they shed light on what the public thought, (4) 
the common law, (5) cases, (6) legal treatises, (7) evidence of 
contemporaneous general public understanding, especially as found in 
other state constitutions and court decisions interpreting them, (8) 
contemporaneous lay-audience advocacy for (or against) its adoption, and 
(9) any other evidence of original public meaning, which could include 
corpus linguistics. Gulf Shores, ___ So. 3d at ____ (Parker, C.J., 
concurring in part and concurring in the result in part); Young Ams. for 
Liberty at Univ. of Alabama at Huntsville v. St. John, [Ms. 1210309, Nov. 
18, 2022] ___ So. 3d ___, ___ (Ala. 2022) (Parker, C.J., concurring in part 
and concurring in the result); Barnett, 338 So. 3d at 766-67 (Mitchell, J., 
concurring specially).  
 
Section 36.06 specifically recognizes the sanctity of unborn life. 
Nevertheless, the phrase "sanctity of unborn life" involves the same 
terms and concepts as the broader and more common phrase, "sanctity of 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
29 
 
life." Thus, the history and meaning of the phrase "sanctity of life" 
informs our understanding of "sanctity of unborn life" as that phrase is 
used in § 36.06. 
At the time § 36.06 was adopted, "sanctity" was defined as: "1. 
holiness of life and character: GODLINESS; 2 a: the quality or state of 
being holy or sacred: INVIOLABILITY b pl: sacred objects, obligations, 
or rights." Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 1100 (11th ed. 2003). 
Recent advocates of the sanctity of life have attempted to articulate the 
principle on purely secular philosophical grounds. See, e.g., John Keown, 
The Law and Ethics of Medicine 3 (2012); Neil M. Gorsuch, The Future 
of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia 157-58 (2009) (arguing that "human 
life is fundamentally and inherently valuable" based on the "secular 
moral theory" that human life is a "basic good" that "ultimately comes 
not from abstract logical constructs (or religious beliefs)"). Such 
advocates have preferred to use the term "inviolability" rather than 
"sanctity" to avoid what one scholar calls "distracting theological 
connotations." Keown, supra, at 3. But even though "inviolability" is 
certainly a synonym of "sanctity" in that the meaning of the two words 
largely overlap, the two words cannot simply be substituted for each 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
30 
 
other because each word carries its own set of implications. When the 
People of Alabama adopted § 36.06, they did not use the term 
"inviolability," with its secular connotations, but rather they chose the 
term "sanctity," with all of its connotations.  
This kind of acceptance is not foreign to our Constitution, which in 
its preamble "invok[es] the favor and guidance of Almighty God," pmbl., 
Ala. Const. 2022, and which declares that "all men … are endowed [with 
life] by their Creator," Art. I, § 1, Ala. Const. 2022.11 The Alabama 
Constitution's recognition that human life is an endowment from God 
emphasizes a foundational principle of English common law, which has 
been expressly incorporated as part of the law of Alabama. § 1-3-1, Ala. 
Code 1975 ("The common law of England … shall … be the rule of 
decisions, and shall continue in force …."). In his Commentaries on the 
Laws of England, Sir William Blackstone declared that "[l]ife is the 
immediate gift of God, a right inherent by nature in every individual."12 
 
11Accord the philosophy of the United States of America as 
expressed in the Declaration of Independence -- "endowed by their 
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life …." 
The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776). 
 
12Blackstone went on to state that life "begins in contemplation of 
law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb." 1 William 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
31 
 
1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *125. He 
later described human life as being "the immediate donation of the great 
creator." Id. at *129. 
Only recently has the phrase "sanctity of life" been widely used as 
shorthand for the general principle that human life can never be 
intentionally taken without adequate justification. The phrase was first 
used in the modern bioethical debate by Rev. John Sutherland Bonnell 
as the title to his 1951 article opposing euthanasia: The Sanctity of 
Human Life. 8 Theology Today 194-201. Glanville Williams later 
employed the phrase in his groundbreaking book, The Sanctity of Life 
and the Criminal Law, in 1957. The common usage of this phrase has  
continued into the 21st century, referring to the view that all human 
beings bear God's image from the moment of conception. See, e.g., 
 
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *125. Similarly, 
Alabama law has recognized that human life begins at conception. See 
Ex parte Hicks, 153 So. 3d 53, 72 (Ala. 2014); Ex parte Ankrom, 152 So. 
3d 397 (Ala. 2013); Hamilton v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 728 (Ala. 2012); Mack v. 
Carmack, 79 So. 3d 597 (Ala. 2011); § 26-22-2(8), Ala. Code 1975 (defining 
an "unborn child" as "[a]n individual organism of the species Homo 
sapiens from fertilization until live birth"); § 26-23A-3(10), Ala. Code 
1975 (defining an "unborn child" as "[t]he offspring of any human person 
from conception until birth"). 
 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
32 
 
Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience (Nov. 20, 2009) 
(at the time of this decision, this document could be located at: 
https://www.manhattandeclaration.org) (referring multiple times to the 
"sanctity of life" in response to abortion).13 
The phrase appeared only twice in our precedents before 2018. In 
1982, Justice Faulkner used it to describe the argument that so-called 
"wrongful birth" actions should not be cognizable at law because the 
"sanctity of life" precluded them. Boone v. Mullendore, 416 So. 2d 718, 
724 (Ala. 1982) (Faulkner, J., concurring specially).  More recently, 
however, it was used in a 2014 special concurrence referring to this 
Court's decisions in Ex parte Ankrom, 152 So. 3d 397 (Ala. 2013), 
Hamilton v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 728 (Ala. 2012), and Mack v. Carmack, 79 
So. 3d 597 (Ala. 2011). Ex parte Hicks, 153 So. 3d 53, 72 (Ala. 2014) 
(Parker, J., concurring specially) ("This case presents an opportunity for 
this Court to continue a line of decisions affirming Alabama's recognition 
 
13It is worth noting that the Manhattan Declaration was signed by 
"Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians" who "joined together 
across historic lines of ecclesial differences" to speak together on certain 
issues, one of which was the sanctity of life. Id. Despite major theological 
disagreements, signers from all three branches of Christianity were able 
to agree on the sanctity of life. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
33 
 
of the sanctity of life from the earliest stages of development. We have 
done so in three recent cases [Ankrom, Hamilton, and Mack]; we do so 
again today." (footnote omitted)).  
But the principle itself -- that human life is fundamentally distinct 
from other forms of life and cannot be taken intentionally without 
justification -- has deep roots that reach back to the creation of man "in 
the image of God." Genesis 1:27 (King James). One 17th-century 
commentator has explained the significance of man's creation in God's 
image as follows: 
"[T]he chief excellence and prerogative of created man is in 
the image of his Creator. For while God has impressed as it 
were a vestige of himself upon all the rest of the creatures … 
so that from all the creatures you can gather the presence and 
efficiency of the Creator, or as the apostle [Paul] says, you can 
clearly see his eternal power and divinity, yet only man did he 
bless with his own image, that from it you may recognize not 
only what the Creator is, but also who he is, or what his 
qualities are. 
 
"… God did this: (1) so that he might as it were 
contemplate and delight himself in man, as in a copy of 
himself, or a most highly polished mirror, for which reason his 
delights are said to be with the children of men. (2) So that he 
might, as much as can be done, propagate himself as it were 
in man. … (3) So that he would have on earth one who would 
know, love, and worship him and all that is his, which could 
not be obtained in the least apart from the image of God …. 
(4) So that he might have one with whom he would live most 
blessed for eternity, with whom he would converse as with a 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
34 
 
friend …. Therefore, so that God could eternally dwell and 
abide with man, he willed him to be in some manner similar 
to him, to bear his image ….  
 
"…. 
 
"Therefore, the image of God in man is nothing except a 
conformity of man whereby he in measure reflects the highest 
perfection of God." 
 
3 Petrus Van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology 282-85 (Joel R. 
Beeke ed., Todd M. Rester trans., Reformation Heritage Books 2021) 
(1698-99).14 
 
Van Mastricht's assessment of the significance of man's creation in 
the image of God accords with that of Thomas Aquinas centuries earlier. 
Following Augustine, Aquinas distinguished human life from other 
things God made, including nonhuman life, on the ground that man was 
made in God's image.  
 
14Petrus Van Mastricht (1630-1706) was a Dutch Reformed 
theologian and professor at the University of Utrecht. He was a favorite 
of Jonathan Edwards, a leading minister in the First Great Awakening 
and later President of Princeton University. Edwards opined that, "for 
divinity in General, doctrine, Practice & Controversie; or as an [sic] 
universal system of divinity, [Van Mastrict's Theoretical-Practical 
Theology] is much better than … any other Book in the world, excepting 
the Bible." Jonathan Edwards & Stanley T. Williams, Six Letters of 
Jonathan Edwards to Joseph Bellamy, 1 New Eng. Q. 226, 230 (footnotes 
omitted) (reprinting Edwards's letter to Bellamy dated January 15, 
1747). 
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35 
 
"As Augustine observes, man surpasses other things, not in 
the fact that God Himself made man, as though He did not 
make other things; since it is written, 'The work of Thy hands 
is the heaven,' and elsewhere, 'His hands laid down the dry 
land,' but in this, that man is made to God's image."  
 
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica First Part, Treatise on Man, 
Question 91, Art. 4 (Fathers of the English Dominican Province trans., 
Benziger Bros., Inc. 1947). Further, Aquinas explained that every man 
has the image of God in that he "possesses a natural aptitude for 
understanding and loving God," which imitates God chiefly in "that God 
understands and loves Himself." Id., First Part, Question 93, Art. 4. 
Thus, man's creation in God's image directs man to his last end, which is 
to know and love God. Id., Second Part, Question 1, Art. 8.  
Man's creation in God's image is the basis of the general prohibition 
on the intentional taking of human life. See Genesis 9:6 (King James) 
("Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the 
image of God made he man."). John Calvin, in expounding that text, 
explains: 
"For the greater confirmation of the above doctrine [of capital 
punishment for murder], God declares, that he is not thus 
solicitous respecting human life rashly, and for no purpose. 
Men are indeed unworthy of God's care, if respect be had only 
to themselves; but since they bear the image of God engraven 
on them, He deems himself violated in their person. Thus, 
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36 
 
although they have nothing of their own by which they obtain 
the favour of God, he looks upon his own gifts in them, and is 
thereby excited to love and to care for them. This doctrine, 
however, is to be carefully observed, that no one can be 
injurious to his brother without wounding God himself. Were 
this doctrine deeply fixed in our minds, we should be much 
more reluctant than we are to inflict injuries. Should any one 
object, that this divine image has been obliterated, the 
solution is easy; first, there yet exists some remnant of it, so 
that man is possessed of no small dignity; and secondly, the 
Celestial Creator himself, however corrupted man may be, 
still keeps in view the end of his original creation; and 
according to his example, we ought to consider for what end 
he created men, and what excellence he has bestowed upon 
them above the rest of living beings." 
 
John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis 
295-96 (John King trans., Calvin Translation Society 1847) (1554) 
(emphasis added). Likewise, the Geneva Bible, which was the "most 
popular book in colonial homes,"15 includes a footnote to Genesis 9:6 that 
provides: "Therefore to kill man is to deface God's image, and so injury is 
not only done to man, but also to God." Genesis 9:6 n.2 (Geneva Bible 
1599).  
 
Finally, the doctrine of the sanctity of life is rooted in the Sixth 
Commandment: "You shall not murder." Exodus 20:13 (NKJV 1982). See 
 
15Kenneth Graham, Confrontation Stories: Raleigh on the 
Mayflower, 3 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 209, 213-14 (2005). 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
37 
 
John Eidsmoe, Those Ten Commandments: Why Won't They Just Go 
Away? 31 Regent U. L. Rev. 11, 15 (2018) (arguing that the Sixth 
Commandment is the basis for "Respect for Life" in Western law); see 
also Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677, 686-90 (2005) (discussing the 
impact of the Ten Commandments on America generally). Aquinas 
taught that "it is in no way lawful to slay the innocent" because "we ought 
to love the nature which God has made, and which is destroyed by slaying 
him." Aquinas, supra, Second Part of the Second Part, Treatise on 
Prudence and Justice, Question 64, Art. 6. Likewise, Calvin explained 
the reason for the Sixth Commandment this way: "Man is both the image 
of God and our flesh. Wherefore, if we would not violate the image of God, 
we must hold the person of man sacred." 2 John Calvin, Institutes of the 
Christian Religion 256 (Henry Beveridge trans., Hendrickson Publishers 
2008) (1559). These and many similar writings, creeds, catechisms, and 
teachings have informed the American public's view of life as sacred.   
In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life 
adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: (1) God 
made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value 
that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human 
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38 
 
life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy 
God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself. 
Section 36.06 recognizes that this is true of unborn human life no less 
than it is of all other human life -- that even before birth, all human 
beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without 
effacing his glory. 
II. Effect of Constitutional Policy 
Having discussed the meaning of the phrase "sanctity of unborn 
life," I will briefly explore the legal effect of its inclusion in the Alabama 
Constitution as a statement of public policy. Again, I will start with the 
text. Section 36.06 provides, in relevant part:  
"(a) This state acknowledges, declares, and affirms that 
it is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the 
sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, 
including the right to life. 
 
"(b) This state further acknowledges, declares, and 
affirms that it is the public policy of this state to ensure the 
protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners and 
measures lawful and appropriate." 
 
In 2018, the term "public policy" was a legal term that meant: "The 
collective rules, principles, or approaches to problems that affect the 
commonwealth or (esp.) promote the general good; specif., principles and 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
39 
 
standards regarded by the legislature or by the courts as being of 
fundamental concern to the state and the whole society." Black's Law 
Dictionary 1426 (10th ed. 2014); see also Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. 
Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 73 
(Thomson/West 2012) (noting that ordinary legal meaning governs 
instead of common meaning when the law is the subject). Notice that the 
dictionary does not just say that "public policy" is something like 
"whatever is in the best interests of Alabama," which really is for the 
Legislature and not this Court to decide. Instead, it refers to the collective 
rules, principles, or approaches to problems or principles and standards. 
Because this term refers to fixed standards and not subjective opinions 
of whatever serves the public good, this Court can look to this § 36.06 in 
appropriate cases to aid it in its decisions. 
 
When considering a question concerning "public policy," an 
Alabama judge is supposed to look to "the Constitution, the statutes, or 
definite principles of customary law which have been recognized and 
developed by the course of judicial decisions," such as the common law, 
but not "some considerations of policy which might properly have weight 
with the Legislature if it had occasion to deal with the question." Couch 
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40 
 
v. Hutchison, 2 Ala. App. 444, 447, 57 So. 75, 76 (1911).  Thus, Alabama 
precedents confirm that the Judiciary can look to the Constitution, 
statutes, and principles of customary law to determine what the public 
policy of this state is. It must not, however, usurp the role of the 
Legislature by attempting to guess what policy decision the Legislature 
might have made if it had considered other factors. That decision must 
be left for the Legislature itself.  
 
Now that we know what "public policy" means, we must consider 
what effect it has on statutory interpretation. In one of its oldest decisions 
considering that question, this Court held: "It is not denied that where 
public policy or substantial justice obviously requires it, Courts should 
strongly incline to such liberal construction of the statute as will effect 
the object." Jones v. Watkins, 1 Stew. 81, 85 (Ala. 1827). However, in 
more modern times, this Court has repeatedly emphasized adherence to 
the plain language of the statute, and I agree with this approach. See 
generally Jay Mitchell, Textualism in Alabama, 74 Ala. L. Rev. 1089, 
1100-10 (2023). Consequently, I believe that, ordinarily, this Court may 
consider public policy in statutory interpretation only if (1) there is 
substantial doubt about the meaning of the statute and (2) the precepts 
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41 
 
of public policy and jurisprudence to which we look are settled. Ex parte 
Z.W.E., 335 So. 3d 650, 660 (Ala. 2021) (Parker, C.J., concurring in the 
result) (citing Old Republic Ins. Co. v. Lanier, 644 So. 2d 1258, 1260-62 
(Ala. 1994); Allgood v. State, 20 Ala. App. 665, 667, 104 So. 847, 848 
(1925); 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 472 (2009); 73 Am. Jur. 2d Statutes § 91 
(2012)). Thus, I agree with the main opinion that, if the Wrongful Death 
of a Minor Act, § 6-5-391, Ala. Code 1975, were ambiguous, then the 
Sanctity of Unborn Life Amendment would resolve the matter in favor of 
the plaintiffs.  
 
But a special problem arises when the People of Alabama enshrine 
a specific statement of public policy in their Constitution. Instead of 
gleaning bits and pieces of the state's public policy from the Constitution, 
statutes, common law, and precedents, the People of Alabama explicitly 
told the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judiciary what they are 
supposed to do. Ordinarily, we resort to public-policy considerations in 
statutory interpretation as a last resort, so that the Judiciary does not 
usurp the role of the Legislature. But in this case, the People explicitly 
told all three branches of government what they ought to do. See The 
Federalist No. 78, at 525 (Alexander Hamilton) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961) 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
42 
 
(noting that "the power of the people is superior to both" the judicial and 
legislative powers). Consequently, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in The 
Federalist No. 78, "where the will of the legislature declared in its 
statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people declared in the 
constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter, rather than 
the former." Id.  Thus, as a constitutional statement of public policy, § 
36.06 circumscribes the Legislature's discretion to determine public 
policy with regard to unborn life. Accordingly, any legislative (or 
executive) act that contravenes the sanctity of unborn life is potentially 
subject to a constitutional challenge under the Alabama Constitution. 
Putting this all together, § 36.06 does much more than simply 
declare a moral value that the People of Alabama like. Instead, this 
constitutional provision tilts the scales of the law in favor of protecting 
unborn life. Although § 36.06 may not resolve every case involving 
unborn life, if reasonable minds could differ on whether a common-law 
rule, a statute, or even a constitutional provision protects life, § 36.06 
instructs the Alabama government to construe the law in favor of 
protecting the unborn. Furthermore, to exclude the unborn from § 36.06's 
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43 
 
protection, the Legislature would have to do so very clearly and for a 
reason that is consistent with upholding the sanctity of life.  
Justice Cook argues in his dissent that applying § 36.06 and the 
Wrongful Death of a Minor Act to frozen embryos will have disastrous 
consequences for the in vitro fertilization ("IVF") industry in Alabama. 
Although it is for the Legislature to decide how to address this issue, I 
note briefly that many other Westernized countries have adopted IVF 
practices or regulations that allow IVF to continue while drastically 
reducing the chances of embryos being killed, whether in the creation 
process, the implantation process, the freezing process, or by willful 
killing when they become inconvenient. For decades, IVF has been 
largely unregulated in the United States, with some commentators even 
comparing it to the Wild West. See, e.g., Alexander N. Hecht, The Wild 
Wild West: Inadequate Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technology, 
1 Hous. J. Health L. & Pol'y 227, 228 (2001) ("Unfortunately, this 
industry remains largely unregulated. The near-absence of federal and 
state law combined with ineffective and unheeded industry guidelines 
leads to a lawless free-for-all." (footnotes omitted)); see also Myrisha S. 
Lewis, The American Democratic Deficit in Assisted Reproductive 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
44 
 
Technology Innovation, 45 Am. J. L. & Med. 130, 144 & n.77 (2019) 
(noting that IVF in the United States is still unregulated and that 
commentators are still comparing it to the Wild West). In Alabama, the 
only statutes that mention IVF address the issue of determining 
parentage of children conceived through IVF, but they do not govern the 
practice of IVF itself. See The Alabama Uniform Parentage Act, § 26-17-
101 et seq., Ala. Code 1975. And the only administrative regulation of 
IVF in Alabama governs IVF clinics' use of radioactive materials, but not 
any other IVF practice. Ala. Admin. Code (State Bd. Of Health, Dep't of 
Pub. Health), r. 420-3-26-.02. If the Legislature agrees that it is time to 
regulate the IVF industry, then the good news is it need not reinvent the 
wheel. Other Westernized countries have given Alabama some examples 
to consider. 
For instance, in Australia and New Zealand, prevailing ethical 
standards dictate that physicians usually make only one embryo at a 
time.16 On the related issue of embryo transfers, which is the process of 
 
16Code of Practice for Assisted Reproductive Technology Units § 3.3, 
p. 24, Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand, Reproductive 
Technology Accreditation Committee (2021) (at the time of this decision, 
this 
document 
could 
be 
located 
at: 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
45 
 
implanting the embryos into the uterus,17 in Australia and New Zealand 
over 90% of embryo transfers occur only one at a time.18 Likewise, 
European Union ("EU") countries set a legal limit on the number of 
embryos transferred in a single cycle.19 In EU countries, 58% of embryo 
 
https://www.fertilitysociety.com.au/wp-content/uploads/20211124-
RTAC-ANZ-COP.pdf.). 
 
17According to the contract that the LePages signed, the number of 
embryos transferred to the mother could range from 1-5. LePage Contract 
at 9. It appears that the objective of transferring multiple embryos is to 
increase the chances of pregnancy. Id. at 8. At least two issues arise from 
this practice. First, it results in the mother becoming pregnant with 
multiple babies 30% of the time, which can cause health problems for the 
mother and babies. See id. at 17. Second, less than half of embryo 
transfers result in live births, which raises the question whether 
transferring multiple embryos at once risks the deaths of these little 
people. See Jennifer Choe & Anthony L. Shanks, In Vitro Fertilization, 
NIH National Library of Medicine (last updated Sep. 4, 2023), (at the 
time 
of 
this 
decision, 
this 
document 
could 
be 
located 
at:  
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562266. 
 
18See Choe & Shanks, supra, at n.17; Christine Wyns, Number of 
Frozen Treatment Cycles Continues to Rise Throughout the World, 
European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (June 30, 
2021) (at the time of this decision, this document could be located at:  
https://www.focusonreproduction.eu/article/ESHRE-News-ESHRE-2021 
-freeze-all) (reporting that "Australia/New Zealand leads the way" in the 
"number of single embryo transfers" in "more than 90% of cycles"). 
 
19Regulation and Legislation in Assisted Reproduction, European 
Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Jan. 2017) (at the time 
of 
this 
decision, 
this 
document 
could 
be 
located 
at:  
https://tinyurl.com/299cvcbf). Specifically, Austria, Belgium, and Malta 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
46 
 
transfers involve just one embryo, and 38% involve two; thus, 96% of 
embryo transfers in EU countries involve two or fewer transfers at one 
time.20 Such limitations on embryo creation and transfer necessarily 
reduce or eliminate the need for storing embryos for extended lengths of 
time. Italy went one step further, banning cryopreservation of embryos 
except when a bona fide health risk or force majeure prevented the 
embryos from being transferred immediately after their creation.21 All of 
these measures protect the lives of the unborn and still allow couples to 
become parents. Therefore, although certain changes to the IVF 
industry's current creation and handling of embryos in Alabama will 
 
have allowed only one transfer at a time; the United Kingdom, France, 
and Sweden have allowed no more than two; and Germany has allowed 
only three, although a maximum of two is recommended. Id.; Embryo 
Protection Act, Chapter 524, § 6, of the Laws of Malta; Susan Mayor, UK 
Authority Sets Limits on Number of Embryos Transferred, 328 BMJ 65, 
65 (2004). Some of these laws may have changed over time, but they 
illustrate that other Westernized countries have, at some point, adopted 
these positions. 
 
20More Women Are Using Single Embryos During Fertility 
Treatment, European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology 
(June 27, 2023) (at the time of this decision, this document could be 
located 
at: 
https://www.eshre.eu/ESHRE2023/Media/2023-Press-
releases/EIM). 
 
21See Legge 19 Feb. 2004, no. 40 (art. 14, para. 3), in G.U. Feb. 24, 
2004, no. 45 (It.). 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
47 
 
result from this decision, to the extent that Justice Cook is predicting 
that IVF will now end in Alabama, that prediction does not seem to be 
well-founded. 
These regulations adopted by other countries seem much more 
likely to comport with upholding the sanctity of life than the prevailing 
practice of creating and transferring at once many embryos that have 
little chance of survival and then throwing embryos away after a while. 
The American states, unfortunately, have not followed the example of 
other Westernized countries that have regulations that achieve both the 
protection of life and the promotion of parenthood. Ultimately, however, 
it is for the Legislature to decide how the IVF industry can help parents 
have children. The Legislature is free to do so in any way it decides, 
provided that it comports with the Alabama Constitution, including the 
Sanctity of Unborn Life Amendment.22 
III. Conclusion 
 
In application to these cases, the contentions of the defendants and 
their amicus are not sustainable in light of the Sanctity of Unborn Life 
 
22The Legislature should also take note of § 36.06 if it considers 
other ethical issues related to reproduction if they arise.  
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
48 
 
Amendment. The People of Alabama have declared the public policy of 
this State to be that unborn human life is sacred. We believe that each 
human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of 
God, created by Him to reflect His likeness. It is as if the People of 
Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet Jeremiah and applied it 
to every unborn person in this state: "Before I formed you in the womb I 
knew you, Before you were born I sanctified you." Jeremiah 1:5 (NKJV 
1982). All three branches of government are subject to a constitutional 
mandate to treat each unborn human life with reverence. Carving out an 
exception for the people in this case, small as they were, would be 
unacceptable to the People of this State, who have required us to treat 
every human being in accordance with the fear of a holy God who made 
them in His image. For these reasons, and for the reasons stated in the 
main opinion, I concur. 
 
 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
49 
 
SHAW, Justice (concurring specially). 
I concur fully in the main opinion.  I write specially to note the 
following. 
I agree with the main opinion that the meaning of the word "child" 
for purposes of Alabama law is well settled and includes an unborn child.  
Thus, for purposes of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, § 6-5-391, Ala. 
Code 1975 ("the Wrongful Death Act"), the term "minor child" includes 
an unborn child with no distinction between in vitro or in utero.   
In prior cases determining whether an unborn child is a "minor 
child" for purposes of the Wrongful Death Act, this Court has referenced 
the definition of a "person" found in § 13A-6-1(3), Ala. Code 1975, which 
in turn applies to certain portions of the criminal code.  The main opinion 
thoroughly explains why this criminal-law definition does not limit the 
determination whether an in vitro embryo is a "minor child" for purposes 
of a civil-law action under the Wrongful Death Act.  
 
I do not believe that any purported prior common-law rule requires 
a different result.   
 
"The common law of England, so far as it is not 
inconsistent with the Constitution, laws and institutions of 
this state, shall, together with such institutions and laws, be 
the rule of decisions, and shall continue in force, except as 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
50 
 
from time to time it may be altered or repealed by the 
Legislature." 
 
§ 1-3-1, Ala. Code 1975 (emphasis added).  The language of this Code 
section is plain: the common law does not apply when it is inconsistent 
with the Constitution, laws, and institutions of this state.  The legislature 
may always alter the common law, but this Code section does not provide 
that the common law, if inconsistent with the above, remains in place 
unless altered by the legislature.  As one Justice has explained: 
 
"This statute does not provide that 'the common law of 
England shall be the rule of decisions in Alabama unless 
changed by the legislature.' On the contrary, it provides that 
the common law of England shall be the rule of decisions in 
this State, so far as the common law is not inconsistent with 
the constitution, the laws, and the institutions of Alabama." 
 
Swartz v. United States Steel Corp., 293 Ala. 439, 446-47, 304 So. 2d 881, 
887 (1974) (Faulkner, J., concurring specially).   
 
In the context of civil law, the legislature, the constitution, and this 
Court's decisions have collectively repealed the common law's prohibition 
on wrongful-death actions, § 6-5-391; protected the rights of the unborn, 
Ala. Const. 2022, Art. I, § 36.06(b) ("[I]t is the public policy of this state 
to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child …."); and 
eliminated the common law's prohibition on seeking a civil remedy for 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
51 
 
injuries done to the unborn, Huskey v. Smith, 289 Ala. 52, 265 So. 2d 596 
(1972), and Hamilton v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 728 (Ala. 2012).  If, after this, 
the common law does not allow wrongful-death actions for some unborn 
children when they are injured -- here, based on their physical location -- 
that rule must be consistent with the Constitution, laws, and institutions 
of this state.  Whether such rule is in fact consistent, we can respectfully 
disagree.  But if it is inconsistent, then it need not be first altered or 
repealed by the legislature.   
 
It can scarcely be argued that science is not outdistancing the law 
in various areas, especially in the context of human reproduction.  
Creating and sustaining life outside a woman's womb is nothing less than 
the stuff of miracles.  The overriding public policy of this state recognizes 
and supports the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, 
including the right to life, and requires the protection of the rights of the 
unborn child "in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate."  § 
36.06(b).  The people of Alabama, apparently recognizing that 
advancements in reproductive science necessarily come with concomitant 
responsibilities, have bound all three branches of our state government 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
52 
 
to this policy, and, in my view, the enactments of the Alabama 
Legislature are consistent with it.  
 
Stewart, J., concurs. 
 
 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
53 
 
MENDHEIM, Justice (concurring in the result). 
 
Over the course of time, previous cases from this Court have applied 
the protection afforded to a "minor child" in subsection (a) of § 6-5-391, 
Ala. Code 1975, the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, to human lives at 
earlier and earlier stages of development. In Stanford v. St. Louis-San 
Francisco Railway Co., 214 Ala. 611, 108 So. 566 (1926), this Court, 
construing a predecessor to § 6-5-391(a),23 held that a "parental injury 
before the birth is no basis for action in damages by the child or its 
personal representative." Birmingham Baptist Hosp. v. Branton, 218 
Ala. 464, 467, 118 So. 741, 743 (1928) (citing Stanford). However, in 
Huskey v. Smith, 289 Ala. 52, 265 So. 2d 596 (1972), "[t]he Court 
concluded that the term 'minor child' in the predecessor to § 6-5-391(a) 
[Title 7, § 119, Ala. Code 1940 (Recomp. 1958),] included an unborn child 
who was viable at the time of a prenatal injury, who thereafter was born 
alive, but who later died. 289 Ala. at 55, 265 So. 2d at 596." Mack v. 
Carmack, 79 So. 3d 597, 601 (Ala. 2011). The Court pushed the boundary 
back again in Wolfe v. Isbell, 291 Ala. 327, 280 So. 2d 758 (1973), in which 
the Court "concluded that [a] father could maintain an action for the 
 
23Section 5695, Ala. Code 1923. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
54 
 
wrongful death of his unborn child even though the injuries that allegedly 
caused the death occurred before the fetus became viable." Mack, 79 So. 
3d at 604. A year later, in Eich v. Town of Gulf Shores, 293 Ala. 95, 100, 
300 So. 2d 354, 358 (1974), the Court held that "the parents of an eight 
and one-half month old stillborn fetus [were] entitled to maintain an 
action for the wrongful death of the child." The Court stepped back from 
those broader applications of protection in Gentry v. Gilmore, 613 So. 2d 
1241 (Ala. 1993), and Lollar v. Tankersley, 613 So. 2d 1249 (Ala. 1993), 
concluding that "the Wrongful Death [of a Minor] Act did not permit 
recovery for the death of a fetus that occurs before the fetus attains 
viability." Mack, 79 So. 3d at 606. But, several years later in Mack, the 
Court returned to its understanding of the Wrongful Death of a Minor 
Act espoused in Wolfe, holding that "the Wrongful Death [of a Minor] Act 
permits an action for the death of a previable fetus." Mack, 79 So. 3d at 
611. In Hamilton v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 728, 735 (Ala. 2012), the Court 
reaffirmed its conclusion from Mack, stating that "Alabama's wrongful-
death statute allows an action to be brought for the wrongful death of any 
unborn child, even when the child dies before reaching viability."  
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
55 
 
 
The foregoing history of previous decisions concerning the Wrongful 
Death of a Minor Act, and the fact that the pertinent language in the Act 
has not been amended since its enactment in 1872, shows that this Court, 
rather than the Legislature, has taken the lead in shaping when the 
protection afforded by the Act may be invoked. See Eich, 293 Ala. at 100, 
300 So. 2d at 358 (describing that decision as one in which the Court was 
"again extending out judicial prerogative as was done in Huskey and 
Wolfe …."). Because of that, and because the terms "child" and "minor 
child" in § 6-5-391(a) are not further defined in the Wrongful Death of a 
Minor Act, I agree with the main opinion that the Act can be construed 
to include frozen embryos produced through in vitro fertilization ("IVF"). 
For those reasons, I concur in the result reached today that reverses the 
trial court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' wrongful-death claims. 
 
However, I have misgivings about the reasoning and some of the 
comments contained in the main opinion. The main opinion begins its 
analysis by observing that "[t]he parties to these cases have raised many 
difficult questions," but it insists throughout that applying the protection 
of § 6-5-391(a) to frozen embryos is not one of those difficulties because 
"existing black-letter law" dictates our answer to the central question. __ 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
56 
 
So. 3d at __. Indeed, the main opinion states that the text of § 6-5-391(a) 
is "clear" and that there is no ambiguity as to whether its protection 
applies to frozen embryos. __ So. 3d at __. 
"Too often, a court's conclusion that statutory language is 
'plain' is a substitute for careful analysis. At best, such 
unexplained conclusions are based on a judge's gestalt sense 
of the best meaning of the words in question. At worst, the 
bare insistence that statutory language is 'plain' is cover 
(perhaps subconscious) for judicial policymaking." 
 
Carranza v. United States, 267 P.3d 912, 916 (Utah 2011) (opinion of Lee, 
J., joined by one other Justice).  
 
In my judgment, the main opinion's view that the legal conclusion 
is "clear" and "black-letter law" is problematic because when the 
Wrongful Death of a Minor Act was first enacted in 1872, and for 100 
years thereafter, IVF was not even a scientific possibility. Likewise, 
although it may be true that "the phrase 'minor child' … in everyday 
parlance" has long included an "unborn child," the main opinion fails to 
acknowledge that, at the time the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act was 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
57 
 
enacted -- and long thereafter -- the term "unborn child" was only 
understood to refer to a child within its mother's womb.24 __ So. 3d at __. 
 
The main opinion's contention that "[t]he central question 
presented in these consolidated appeals … is whether the [Wrongful 
Death of a Minor] Act contains an unwritten exception to th[e] rule" that 
the Act "allows parents of a deceased child to recover punitive damages 
for their child's death" is similarly simplistic. __ So. 3d at __. The 
defendants have never argued for an "exception" to the Wrongful Death 
 
24See, e.g., Wolfe, 291 Ala. at 331, 280 So. 2d at 761 (observing that 
"the fetus or embryo is not a part of the mother, but rather has a separate 
existence within the body of the mother" (emphasis added)); Clarke v. 
State, 117 Ala. 1, 8, 23 So. 671, 674 (1898) ("'When a child, having been 
born alive, afterwards died by reason of any potion or bruises it received 
in the womb, it seems always to have been the better opinion that it was 
murder in such as administered or gave them.'" (quoting 3 Russell on 
Crimes 6 (6th ed.))). Cf. Ex parte Ankrom, 152 So. 3d 397, 416 (Ala. 2013) 
(observing, in the course of construing the term "child" in the chemical-
endangerment statute, that "[c]learly, for an unborn child, the mother's 
womb is an essential part of its physical circumstances"). Indeed, even 
with regard to IVF, a mother's womb is obviously an indispensable part 
of pregnancy. See Maher v. Vaughn, Silverberg & Assocs., LLP, 95 F. 
Supp. 3d 999, 1002 n.1 (W.D. Tex. 2015) (describing IVF as "a multi-step 
medical procedure," and listing the final steps of that process to be "the 
grown embryos are transferred into the patient's uterus" and then "the 
patient takes supplemental hormones for the ensuing nine to eleven 
days, and if an embryo implants in the lining of the patient's uterus and 
grows, a pregnancy can result"). 
 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
58 
 
of a Minor Act. The main opinion reaches that conclusion by implication 
-- simply assuming that the term "minor child" includes frozen embryos 
-- a wholesale adoption of the plaintiffs' argument. See Appellants' brief 
in appeal no. SC-2022-0515, p. 19 (contending that the "[d]efendants' 
arguments … create an exception to existing Alabama law so that not all 
embryonic lives are treated equally under the law"). 
 
The main opinion then goes on in Part A.2. of its analysis to provide 
reasons why this Court's many pronouncements about "congruence" 
between Alabama's wrongful-death statutes and its criminal-homicide 
statutes25 do not dictate importing the definition of the term "person" in 
§ 13A-6-1(a)(3), Ala. Code 1975, into § 6-5-391(a). The reasoning in that 
portion of the main opinion also strikes me as strained given the history 
behind our wrongful-death statutes.  
 
As this Court has observed numerous times, there was no right of 
action for wrongful death at common law. See, e.g., Ex parte Bio-Med. 
Applications of Alabama, Inc., 216 So. 3d 420, 422 (Ala. 2016) ("'"A 
wrongful death action is purely statutory; no such action existed at 
 
25See, e.g., Mack, 79 So. 3d at 611 (observing that "this Court 
repeatedly has emphasized the need for congruence between the criminal 
law and our civil wrongful-death statutes"). 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
59 
 
common law."'" (quoting Ex parte Hubbard Props., Inc., 205 So. 3d 1211, 
1213 (Ala. 2016), quoting in turn Waters v. Hipp, 600 So. 2d 981, 982 
(Ala. 1992))); Giles v. Parker, 230 Ala. 119, 121, 159 So. 826, 827 (1935) 
("There is no civil liability, under the common law, as interpreted in this 
jurisdiction, against one who wrongfully or negligently causes the death 
of a human being; and hence no right of action exists under the common 
law therefor. The right of action is purely statutory."); Kennedy v. Davis, 
171 Ala. 609, 611-12, 55 So. 104, 104 (1911) ("It has been decided and 
many times reaffirmed by this court that actions under [the wrongful-
death statutes] are purely statutory. There was no such action or right of 
action at common law."). This was also true for the wrongful death of a 
minor child. See White v. Ward, 157 Ala. 345, 349, 47 So. 166, 167 (1908) 
("There was no right of action at the common law for the death of the 
child. … The right to recover damages for its death is therefore purely 
statutory.").  
 
The reasons for the common-law prohibition appear to have been 
based on two legal concepts.  
 
"The effect to be given the death of a person connected 
with a tort rests almost entirely upon statutory foundations. 
The common-law limitations that eventually led to legislative 
reform were twofold. First was the rule that personal tort 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
60 
 
actions die with the person of either the plaintiff or the 
defendant. This limitation is expressed by the maxim, actio 
personalis moritur cum persona, which has roots deep in the 
early history of English law. The second limitation was that 
the death of a human being was not regarded as giving rise to 
any cause of action at common law on behalf of a living person 
who was injured by reason of the death. This latter is of more 
recent origin as a distinct proposition, although it doubtless 
rests in part on the same considerations that underlie the 
other and older maxim of actio personalis moritur cum 
persona." 
 
Wex S. Malone, The Genesis of Wrongful Death, 17 Stan. L. Rev. 1043, 
1044 (1965) (footnotes omitted).26 Our wrongful-death statutes sought to 
remedy that erroneous legal thinking. See, e.g., Suell v. Derricott, 161 
Ala. 259, 262, 49 So. 895, 897 (1909) ("Statutes like ours were clearly 
intended to correct what was deemed a defect of the common law, that 
the right of action based on a tort or injury to the person died with the 
person."); King v. Henkie, 80 Ala. 505, 509 (1886) ("The purpose of this, 
and like legislation, was clearly to correct a defect of the common law, by 
 
26See also Malone, 17 Stan. L. Rev. at 1055 (explaining that "[t]he 
probable origin of the rule denying a cause of action for wrongful death 
was the doctrine, since discarded, that when a cause of action disclosed 
the commission of a felony the civil action was merged into the criminal 
wrong"). Restatement (Second) of Torts § 925, cmt. a. (Am. Law Inst. 
1979), also provides a nice summary of the genesis of wrongful-death 
statutes. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
61 
 
a rule of which it was well settled, that a right of action based on a tort 
or injury to the person, died with the person injured. Under the maxim, 
'Actio personalis moritur cum persona,' the personal representative of a 
deceased person could maintain no action for loss or damage resulting 
from his death."). 
 
The close connection between Alabama's wrongful-death statutes 
and its criminal-homicide statutes was reflected in the first wrongful-
death statute, Act No. 62, Ala. Acts 1871-72, p. 83, which was titled "AN 
ACT To prevent homicides," and their shared purpose has been 
repeatedly noted in our cases. See, e.g., Stinnett v. Kennedy, 232 So. 3d 
202, 215 (Ala. 2016) (noting "the shared purpose of the Wrongful Death 
Act and the Homicide Act to prevent homicide"); Ex parte Bio-Med. 
Applications, 216 So. 3d at 424 ("'[The wrongful-death] statute 
authorizes suit to be brought by the personal representative for a definite 
legislative purpose -- to prevent homicide.'" (quoting Hatas v. Partin, 278 
Ala. 65, 68, 175 So. 2d 759, 761 (1965))); Eich, 293 Ala. at 100, 300 So. 2d 
at 358 ("[T]he pervading public purpose of our wrongful death statute ... 
is to prevent homicide through punishment of the culpable party and the 
determination of damages by reference to the quality of the tortious act. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
62 
 
..."); Huskey, 289 Ala. at 55, 265 So. 2d at 597 ("One of the purposes of 
our wrongful death statute is to prevent homicides.") Thus, it seems 
logical to me for there to be a correlation between the persons protected 
under Alabama's wrongful-death statutes and the persons protected 
under Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes. 
 
The main opinion is correct that the protection afforded in a civil 
law certainly can be broader than its corollary in criminal law, but 
nothing requires the civil law to be read more broadly, particularly given 
the absence of legislative action on this subject.27 
 
27The main opinion asserts that Art. I, § 36.06(b) of the Alabama 
Constitution of 2022, in stating that "it is the public policy of this state 
to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners 
and measures lawful and appropriate," "operates in this context as a 
constitutionally imposed canon of construction, directing courts to 
construe ambiguous statutes in a way that 'protect[s] … the rights of the 
unborn child' equally with the rights of born children, whenever such a 
construction is 'lawful and appropriate.'" __ So. 3d at __. The main 
opinion offers no authority for taking § 36.06 as a canon of legal 
construction, and I am not sure what an "appropriate" construction of the 
law means. 
 
More generally, it is unclear to me why a constitutional amendment 
that was adopted in 2018 is somehow so central to deciding the specific 
meaning of a statute that has substantively remained unchanged since 
1872. In any event, "'[t]o declare what the law is, or has been, is a judicial 
power; to declare what the law shall be, is legislative.'" Lindsay v. United 
States Sav. & Loan Ass'n, 120 Ala. 156, 168, 24 So. 171, 174 (1898) 
(quoting Thomas Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 114). 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
63 
 
 
Moreover, I find it interesting that the Human Life Protection Act, 
§ 26-23H-1 et seq., Ala. Code 1975, which was enacted in 2019 -- well 
after the Brody Act, which amended § 13A-6-1 of our criminal-homicide 
statutes, (and also after the Sanctity of Unborn Life Amendment, i.e., 
Art. I, § 36.06, Ala. Const. 2022) -- defines an "unborn child" exactly the 
same way the Brody Act defines a "person": "A human being, specifically 
including an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, 
regardless of viability." § 26-23H-3(7), Ala. Code 1975. In its amicus 
curiae brief, the Alabama Medical Association states: 
"[D]uring the debate on the Alabama Senate floor regarding 
the Human Life Protection Act, Senator Clyde Chambliss, the 
Bill's sponsor in the Alabama Senate, confirmed that the 'in 
utero' language in the Act was intentional, since it was not 
the intent of the Legislature through this Act to impact or 
prevent the destruction of fertilized in vitro eggs because in 
those circumstances, the woman is not pregnant. Likewise, 
Eric Johnston, president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition 
and one of the individuals who helped draft the Human Life 
Protection bill, stated in an interview with the Washington 
Post that the Bill would 'absolutely not' impact in vitro 
fertilization. Mr. Johnston gave this statement in response to 
the ACLU's misguided suggestion that the Act might affect in 
vitro fertilization." 
 
Alabama Medical Association's brief, pp. 30-31 (footnotes omitted). I fully 
realize that such legislative history is not persuasive for purposes of 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
64 
 
statutory interpretation, but that history should give us pause regarding 
any kind of expansive interpretation of the Brody Act. 
 
I also take issue with a hypothetical employed by the main opinion 
to support the decision. Despite asserting at the outset of its analysis that 
"the Court today need not address" questions such as "the application of 
the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to [IVF] 
children," __ So. 3d at __, the main opinion nonetheless proceeds to share 
-- and implicitly agree with -- a hypothetical posited by the plaintiffs that 
purports to implicate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th 
Amendment.28 The main opinion asserts that "one latent implication" of 
the defendants' interpretation of § 6-5-391(a) is that 
"even a full-term infant or toddler conceived through IVF and 
gestated to term in an in vitro environment would not qualify 
as a 'child' or 'person,' because such a child would both be (1) 
'unborn' (having never been delivered from a biological womb) 
and (2) not 'in utero.' And if such children were not legal 
 
 
28It is, perhaps, telling that the plaintiffs and the main opinion 
chose to insert a hypothetical federal equal-protection issue given that 
there is no express equal-protection clause in the Alabama Constitution, 
a fact this Court has noted on several occasions. See, e.g., Mobile 
Infirmary Ass'n v. Tyler, 981 So. 2d 1077, 1104 (Ala. 2007) (observing 
that "'this Court has acknowledged that the Alabama Constitution 
contains no equal-protection clause ….'" (quoting Mobile Infirmary Med. 
Ctr. v. Hodgen, 884 So. 2d 801, 813 (Ala. 2003), and citing Ex parte Melof, 
735 So. 2d 1172 (Ala. 1999))). 
 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
65 
 
'children' or 'persons,' then their lives would be unprotected 
by Alabama law." 
 
__ So. 3d at __ (footnote omitted).  
 
First, in mentioning the foregoing hypothetical, the main opinion 
ignores the fact that it is not now -- or for the foreseeable future -- 
scientifically possible to develop a child in an artificial womb so that such 
a scenario could somehow unfold.29 Second, the main opinion's choice to 
 
 
29Perhaps in anticipation of that objection, the main opinion inserts 
a footnote that selectively quotes from a couple of journal articles to make 
it seem as if the time when artificial wombs for the earliest stages of 
human life are a reality is just around the corner. See __ So. 3d at __ n.2. 
That is simply untrue. See, e.g., Jen Christensen, FDA Advisers Discuss 
Future of 'Artificial Womb' for Human Infants, CNN, Sept. 19, 2023 (at 
the time of this decision, this article could be located at: 
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/health/artificial-womb-human-trial-
fda/index.html) (reporting that "[a] handful of scientists have been 
experimenting with animals and artificial wombs," but that "no such 
device has been tested in humans," and that, in any event, "[a]n artificial 
womb is not designed to replace a pregnant person; it could not be used 
from conception until birth. Rather, it could be used to help a small 
number of infants born before 28 weeks of pregnancy, which is considered 
extreme prematurity."); Stephen Wilkinson et al., Artificial Wombs 
Could Someday be a Reality, The Conversation, Dec. 1, 2023 (at the time 
of 
this 
decision, 
this 
article 
could 
be 
located 
at: 
https://theconversation.com/artificial-wombs-could-someday-be-a-
reality-heres-how-they-may-change-our-notions-of-parenthood-217490) 
(observing that even an artificial womb for premature babies "may be 
many decades away" but that "artificial womb technologies could 
eventually lead to 'full ectogenesis' -- growing a foetus from conception to 
'birth' wholly outside the human body" (emphasis added)). 
 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
66 
 
include that emotionally charged hypothetical undermines its earlier 
observation that "[a]ll parties to these cases, like all members of this 
Court, agree that an unborn child is a genetically unique human being 
whose life began at fertilization and ends at death."30 __ So. 3d at __. No 
 
30I note that although I certainly agree with the above-quoted 
statement from the main opinion, even that observation is not as simple 
as it appears because of the terms involved. 
 
"Notwithstanding various legislative pronouncements, from a 
medical and scientific perspective, fertilization is currently 
considered to be a chaotic and multi-step process, whereas 
'conception' has variously been described as the time frame 
between fertilization and implantation in a woman's uterus, 
or the process of implantation. Precisely how long an in vitro 
growing cell mass is considered an embryo versus a pre-
embryo, or whether the latter term is a legitimate distinction 
has long been the subject of debate among scientists as well 
as legal and ethical scholars." 
 
Susan L. Crockin & Gary A. Debele, Ethical Issues in Assisted 
Reproduction: A Primer for Family Law Attorneys, 27 J. Am. Acad. 
Matrim. Law. 289, 299 (2015). See also McQueen v. Gadberry, 507 
S.W.3d 127, 134 n.4 (Mo. Ct. App. 2016) (observing that "'"Pre-embryo" 
is a medically accurate term for a zygote or fertilized egg that has not 
been implanted in a uterus. It refers to the approximately 14-day period 
of development from fertilization to the time when the embryo implants 
in the uterine wall and the "primitive streak," the precursor to the 
nervous system, appears. An embryo proper develops only after 
implantation. The term "frozen embryos" is a term of art denoting 
cryogenically preserved pre-embryos.'" (quoting Elizabeth A. Trainor, 
Annotation, Right of Husband, Wife, or Other Party to Custody of Frozen 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
67 
 
one -- not Mobile Infirmary Association, the Center for Reproductive 
Medicine, the amicus Alabama Medical Association, my dissenting 
colleagues, or anyone who disagrees with today's Court's decision -- is 
suggesting that such a child, if he or she could be produced, should not 
be protected by Alabama law.  
 
Ultimately, as I stated at the outset, we must be guided by the 
language provided in the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act and the manner 
in which our cases have interpreted it. Under those guideposts, today's 
result is correct. However, the decision undoubtedly will come as a shock 
in some quarters of the State. I urge the Legislature to provide more 
leadership in this area of the law given the numerous policy issues and 
serious ethical concerns at stake,31 and the fact that there is little 
 
Embryo, Pre-embryo, or Pre-zygote in Event of Divorce, Death, or Other 
Circumstances, 87 A.L.R. 5th 253, 260 (2001))). 
 
 
31See, e.g., Yehezkel Margalit, From (Moral) Status (of the Frozen 
Embryo) to (Relational) Contract and Back Again to (Relational Moral) 
Status, 20 Ind. Health L. Rev. 257, 257 (2023) ("The existing hundreds of 
thousands of unused frozen embryos, coupled with the skyrocketing rate 
of divorce, raise numerous moral, legal, social, and religious dilemmas. 
Among the most daunting problems are the moral and legal status of the 
frozen embryo; what should its fate be in the event of conflicts between 
the progenitors?; and whether contractual regulation of frozen embryos 
is valid and enforceable."); Caroline A. Harman, Defining the Third Way 
-- the Special-Respect Legal Status of Frozen Embryos, 26 Geo. Mason L. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
68 
 
 
Rev. 515, 516 (2018) (observing that, "[u]nfortunately, American courts 
have not kept pace with the advancements happening in the field of ART 
[assisted reproductive technology]" and that, "[m]ost often, frozen embryo 
cases come to the courts during divorce suits between progenitors. Due 
to the personal nature of ART, however, progenitors are less likely to seek 
legal recourse when frozen embryos are negligently destroyed and the 
harm caused by the clinic is shielded from the public eye. While suits 
regarding negligent destruction of frozen embryos and suits when 
progenitors stop paying storage fees are less common, they are not 
without their legal and societal implications. When couples do turn to the 
judicial system, the courts are often ill-equipped to answer such legal 
questions in a manner that also considers the unique nature of ART and 
the accompanying emotions of the progenitors." (footnotes omitted)); 
Shirley Darby Howell, The Frozen Embryo: Scholarly Theories, Case 
Law, and Proposed State Regulation, 14 DePaul J. Health Care L. 407, 
407 (2013) (explaining that "[u]sing IVF to assist individuals and couples 
having trouble procreating would be seemingly positive, but the 
procedure has resulted in serious unintended consequences that continue 
to trouble theologians, physicians, and the courts. The ongoing legal 
debate focuses on two principal questions: (1) whether a frozen embryo 
should be regarded as a person, property, or something else and, (2) how 
to best resolve disputes between gamete donors concerning disposition of 
surplus frozen embryos."); Maggie Davis, Indefinite Freeze?: The 
Obligations A Cryopreservation Bank Has to Abandoned Frozen 
Embryos in the Wake of the Maryland Stem Cell Research Act of 2006, 
15 J. Health Care L. & Pol'y 379, 396-97 (2012) (asserting that 
"[c]ryopreservation is a scarce good, and is incredibly costly. For instance, 
one California cryopreservation bank charged clients $375 a year, 
prepaid, to store embryos. After many years, this can become incredibly 
burdensome on the progenitors. When the fees become too burdensome, 
there is a higher chance for couples to stop paying their fees, and 
eventually fall out of contact with the clinic. As embryos are abandoned, 
and storage fees are not paid, cryopreservation banks will likely need to 
raise the costs of the fees to other customers in order to compensate." 
(footnotes omitted)); Beth E. Roxland & Arthur Caplan, Should 
Unclaimed Frozen Embryos Be Considered Abandoned Property and 
Donated to Stem Cell Research?, 21 B.U. J. Sci. & Tech. L. 108, 109 (2015) 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
69 
 
regulation of the entire IVF industry.32 Ultimately, it is the Legislature 
that possesses the constitutional authority and responsibility to be the 
final arbiter concerning whether a frozen embryo is protected by the laws 
of this State. Without such guidance, I fear that there could be 
unfortunate consequences stemming from today's decision that no one 
intends. 
 
 
 
("'As science races ahead, it leaves in its trail mind-numbing ethical and 
legal questions.'" (quoting Kass v. Kass, 91 N.Y. 2d 554, 562, 696 N.E.2d 
174, 178, 673 N.Y.S. 2d 350, 354 (1998) (citing John A. Robertson, 
Children of Choice: Freedom and The New Reproductive Technologies 
(1994))). 
 
 
32See, e.g., Valerie A. Mock, Getting the Cold Shoulder: 
Determining the Legal Status of Abandoned IVF Embryos and the 
Subsequent Unfair Obligations of IVF Clinics in North Carolina, 52 
Wake Forest L. Rev. 241, 257 (2017) (observing that "IVF centers are 
largely a self-regulated industry, meaning that for better or for worse, 
they receive little governmental oversight. There are no federal 
regulations for the disposition of abandoned embryos, and very few states 
have addressed it legislatively." (footnotes omitted)); Roxland & Caplan, 
21 B.U. J. Sci. & Tech. L. at 115 (noting that "[n]o federal statutory law 
or regulation generally governs the classification of frozen embryos. In 
fact, only three states have enacted legislation concerning the disposition 
of frozen embryos more generally: Louisiana, Florida, and New 
Hampshire." (footnotes omitted)). 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
70 
 
SELLERS, Justice (concurring in the result in part and dissenting in 
part). 
 
 
These cases are not about when life begins, nuances of statutory 
construction, or the definition of "minor child" or "person." And, contrary 
to the main opinion, there is no black-letter law in Alabama, or any other 
state, to help us.33 Regrettably, these cases use the specter of destroying 
human life to craft a narrative involving the protection of unborn children 
to cynically inflame worries about the sanctity of life under Alabama law. 
 
In reality, these cases concern nothing more than an attempt to 
design a method of obtaining punitive damages under Alabama's 
Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, § 6-5-391, Ala. Code 1975, by concluding 
that frozen embryos, negligently destroyed, are entitled to the same 
protections as a fetus inside a mother's womb. Parsing the Brody Act, Act 
No. 2006-419, Ala. Acts 2006, codified as § 13A-6-1, Ala. Code 1975 
(which is a part of Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes), and employing 
any sequence of linguistic gymnastics, cannot yield the conclusion that 
embryos developed through in vitro fertilization were intended by the 
legislature to be included in the definition of "person," see § 13A-6-
 
33Otherwise, the duration of oral argument would not have 
approached two hours. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
71 
 
1(a)(3), much less the definition of "minor child," see § 6-5-391(a). It is 
clear from the four corners of the Brody Act that the legislative intent 
was to protect unborn life, regardless of viability, from violence 
perpetrated against the mother. Previously, to impose criminal sanctions 
for the murder of an unborn child was impossible. See Act No. 77-607, 
§ 2001(2), Ala. Acts 1977 (amended in 2006 by the Brody Act) ("'Person,' 
when referring to the victim of a criminal homicide, means a human 
being who had been born and was alive at the time of the homicidal act." 
(emphasis added)). The Brody Act eliminated not only this born-alive 
requirement but also any viability threshold to create the bright-line rule 
that, if a woman is pregnant, an embryo in utero receives all the 
protections that a viable life would be afforded under the laws of 
Alabama. See § 13A-6-1(a)(3). Thus, and in light of Justice Houston's 
special writings in Gentry v. Gilmore, 613 So. 2d 1241, 1245 (Ala. 1993) 
(Houston, J., concurring in the result), and Lollar v. Tankersley, 613 So. 
2d 1249, 1253 (Ala. 1993) (Houston, J., concurring in the result), which 
"emphasized the need for congruence between the criminal law and our 
civil wrongful-death statutes," Mack v. Carmack, 79 So. 3d 597, 611 (Ala. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
72 
 
2011), this Court held "that the Wrongful Death [of a Minor] Act permits 
an action for the death of a previable fetus." Id. 
 
But interpreting the Brody Act as we are asked to do here is a 
judgment call. In short, we must determine whether to constrain 
ourselves to the clear intent of the Act or whether to inform our 
interpretation using extraneous means to reach a result clearly contrary 
to anything the Act ever intended. The majority's conclusion that an 
action may be maintained under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act for 
the negligent destruction of an in vitro embryo -- an atextual conclusion 
purportedly reached by utilizing the Brody Act's definition of "person" to 
inform the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act's definition of "minor child" -- is 
clearly contrary to the intent of the legislature. To equate an embryo 
stored in a specialized freezer with a fetus inside of a mother is engaging 
in an exercise of result-oriented, intellectual sophistry, which I am 
unwilling to entertain.  
 
Furthermore, I am puzzled by the majority and concurring opinions' 
references to Article I, § 36.06, of the Alabama Constitution of 2022. We 
have repeatedly stated that "'[a] court has a duty to avoid constitutional 
questions unless essential to the proper disposition of the case.'" Lowe v. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
73 
 
Fulford, 442 So. 2d 29, 33 (Ala. 1983) (quoting trial court's order citing 
other cases). The majority believes the word "child" is unambiguous, yet 
it opines in dicta, without any citation to authority, that if the word 
"child" were ambiguous, § 36.06 acts "as a constitutionally imposed canon 
of construction, directing courts to construe ambiguous statutes in a way 
that 'protect[s] ... the rights of the unborn child' equally with the rights 
of born children." __ So. 3d at __. Respectfully, § 36.06 neither operates 
in such a fashion nor commands this Court to override legislative acts it 
believes "contraven[e] the sanctity of unborn life." __ So. 3d at __ (Parker, 
C.J., concurring specially). Section 36.06 states, in relevant part, "that it 
is the public policy of this state to ensure the protection of the rights of 
the unborn child in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate." 
§ 36.06(b). Because all policy determinations are vested in our 
legislature, this includes those determinations regarding the sanctity of 
unborn life. Therefore, § 36.06 merely reaffirms that "the judicial branch 
may not exercise the legislative or executive power." Art. III, § 42(c), Ala. 
Const. 2022. Accordingly, this Court has no authority to determine 
whether legislation concerning or relating to unborn life defies § 36.06; 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
74 
 
that authority lies only with the People of this State, acting through their 
elected representatives. 
Any public-policy ramifications of any decision in these cases are 
outside the purview of this Court, and they are more appropriately 
reserved for the legislature. Should the legislature wish to include in 
vitro embryos in the definition of "minor child," it may easily do so. 
Absent any specific legislative directive, however, we should not read 
more into a legislative act than the legislature did so itself. Thus, as to 
the majority opinion's conclusion regarding the Wrongful Death of a 
Minor Act, I respectfully dissent. 
Insofar as the majority opinion affirms the trial court's dismissal of 
the plaintiffs' negligence and wantonness claims, I concur in the result. I 
must necessarily disagree with the majority opinion's mootness rationale 
on account of my dissent as to the majority opinion's analysis and 
conclusion regarding the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. 
 
 
 
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75 
 
COOK, Justice (dissenting). 
I respectfully dissent. The first question that this Court is being 
asked to decide in these appeals is whether Alabama's Wrongful Death 
of a Minor Act ("the Wrongful Death Act"), see § 6-5-391, Ala. Code 1975, 
as passed by our Legislature, provides a civil cause of action for money 
damages for the loss of frozen embryos. This is a question of the meaning 
of the words in that Act, as it was originally passed and understood in 
1872.  
My sympathy with the plaintiffs and my deeply held personal views 
on the sanctity of life cannot change the meaning of words enacted by our 
elected Legislature in 1872.  Even when the facts of a case concern 
profoundly difficult moral questions, our Court must stay within the 
bounds of our judicial role.   
Limiting our role to interpreting the existing words in a statute and 
letting the Legislature decide changes is one of the basic teachings of the 
United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson 
Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022). In that case, the 
United States Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 
(1973), and returned the hotly disputed issue of abortion to the citizens 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
76 
 
in each state, so that their elected representatives could pass laws 
addressing that issue. In concluding that the authority to regulate 
abortion "must be returned to the people and their elected 
representatives," the Supreme Court in Dobbs explained that "respect for 
a legislature's judgment applies even when the laws at issue concern 
matters of great social significance and moral substance." 597 U.S. at 292 
and 302. The Supreme Court further explained that it "'has neither the 
authority nor the expertise to adjudicate those disputes'" and that 
"'courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the 
judgment of legislative bodies.'" Id. at 289 (quoting Ferguson v. Skrupa, 
372 U.S. 726, 729-30 (1963)).   
Over the years, our Court has repeatedly said the same thing. 
Specifically, our Court has made clear that we are "not at liberty to 
rewrite statutes or to substitute [our] judgment for that of the 
Legislature." Ex parte Carlton, 867 So. 2d 332, 338 (Ala. 2003).  Further, 
our Court has repeatedly made clear that "public-policy arguments 
should be directed to the legislature, not to this Court." Ex parte Ankrom, 
152 So. 3d 397, 420 (Ala. 2013) (emphasis added).   
Statutes Do Not Evolve. The Legislature Amends Them. 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
77 
 
On rare occasions, our Court's decisions have included language 
that departed from the rule that the Legislature -- and not this Court -- 
updates statutes.   For example, in Eich v. Town of Gulf Shores, 293 Ala. 
95, 99, 300 So. 2d 354, 357 (1974), this Court wrote that "it is often 
necessary to breathe life into existing laws less they become stale and 
shelfworn" "in order that existing law may become useful law to promote 
the ends of justice." This is both dicta and fundamentally wrong.   
It is not our role to expand the reach of a statute and "breathe life" 
into it by updating or amending it.  It is also not our role to consider 
whether a law has become "stale" or "shelfworn."34  This is the same error 
made by those commentators who advocate for a living constitution and 
argue that the words in our Constitution should evolve over time.35 
 
34See Craft v. McCoy, 312 So. 3d 32, 37 (Ala. 2020) (recognizing that 
"'"'"'when determining legislative intent from the language used in a 
statute, a court may explain the language, but it may not detract from or 
add to the statute'"'"'") (citations omitted)); and Ex parte Coleman, 145 
So. 3d 751, 758 (Ala. 2013) (recognizing that "'[t]he judiciary will not add 
that which the Legislature chose to omit'" (quoting Ex parte Jackson, 614 
So. 2d 405, 407 (Ala. 1993))). 
 
35See generally Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: 
The Interpretation of Legal Texts 403-10 (Thomson/West 2012); Joe 
Carter, Justice Scalia Explains Why the "Living Constitution" is a Threat 
to America, Action Inst. (May 14, 2018) (at the time of this decision, this 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
78 
 
Instead, it is the role of the Legislature to determine whether a law 
is outdated (for instance, because of new technology) and, thus, requires 
updating.  If our Court does "breathe life" into a law by expanding its 
reach, we short-circuit the legislative process and violate the Alabama 
Constitution's separation-of-powers clause.  That clause provides that, 
"[t]o the end that the government of the State of Alabama may be a 
government of laws and not of individuals, … the judicial branch may not 
exercise the legislative or executive power." Ala. Const. 2022, Art. III, § 
42(c). Substituting our own meaning "turn[s] this Court into a legislative 
body, and doing that, of course, would be utterly inconsistent with the 
doctrine of separation of powers." DeKalb Cnty. LP Gas Co. v. Suburban 
Gas, Inc., 729 So. 2d 270, 276 (Ala. 1998).   
Separation of powers is part of our Constitution for a reason -- there 
are real advantages to the Legislature -- and not this Court -- making 
such decisions.  See Jay Mitchell, Textualism in Alabama, 74 Ala. L. Rev. 
1089, 1097 (2023) (explaining that "[t]here is a reason that the people 
elected legislators to formulate public policy, and there is every reason to 
 
article could be located at: https://rlo.acton.org/archives/101616-justice-
scalia-explains-why-the-living-constitution-is-a-threat-to-america.html).  
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
79 
 
think they are better at it and better situated to be accountable for their 
choices than judges are" (emphasis in original)). In fact, the drafters of 
the Alabama Constitution felt the separation-of-powers principle was so 
important that they made it an express clause in our Constitution, 
whereas the drafters of the Constitution of the United States did not.36 
The facts of these cases certainly illustrate why the Legislature is best 
suited to weigh competing interests and write comprehensive legislation, 
after full input from the public and thorough study.  
Why I Dissent 
I dissent because the main opinion violates this fundamental 
principle -- that is, that the legislative branch and not the judicial branch 
updates laws -- by expanding the meaning of the Wrongful Death Act 
beyond what it meant in 1872 without an amendment by the Legislature. 
I also dissent because I believe the main opinion overrules our recent 
Wrongful Death Act caselaw that requires "congruence" between the 
definition of "person" in Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes and the 
 
36Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Ctr. Auth. v. City of Birmingham, 
912 So. 2d 204, 212 (Ala. 2005) (explaining that "[t]he Constitution of 
Alabama expressly adopts the doctrine of separation of powers that is 
only implicit in the Constitution of the United States").    
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80 
 
definition of "minor child" in the Wrongful Death Act.  Both the original 
public meaning and this recent caselaw indicate the same result here -- 
that the Wrongful Death Act does not address frozen embryos. 
Moreover, there are other significant reasons to be concerned about 
the main opinion's holding.  No court -- anywhere in the country -- has 
reached the conclusion the main opinion reaches. And, the main opinion's 
holding almost certainly ends the creation of frozen embryos through in 
vitro fertilization ("IVF") in Alabama.  The plaintiffs themselves 
explained in oral argument: 
"But today we're here advocating on behalf of plaintiffs who 
are supporters of in vitro fertilization.  It worked for them.  
They have two beautiful children in each family because of in 
vitro fertilization.  The notion that they would do anything to 
hinder or impair the right or access to IVF therapy is flat 
wrong.  That's not why we're here." 
 
Supreme Court of Alabama, Supreme Court O/A Mobile Alabama, 
YouTube 19:14 (Sep. 21, 2023) (at the time of this decision, this oral- 
argument session could be located at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v 
=L08KGhNSDME) (emphasis added).  It is not my role to judge whether 
ending this medical procedure is good or bad -- but it doubtless will have 
a huge impact on many Alabamians.  And it underscores the need to have 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
81 
 
the Legislature -- not this Court -- address these issues through the 
legislative process.   
In addition to the reasons stated above, I also dissent because the 
main opinion does not reach the second question presented in these 
appeals -- that is, whether the trial court prematurely dismissed the 
plaintiffs' negligence and wantonness claims at the pleading stage.  
Those claims present an alternative pathway to protect frozen embryos, 
a pathway without many of the problems presented by the Wrongful 
Death Act claims. 
There is no dispute in these cases about when life begins.  All 
parties agree on that issue.  I specifically asked the defendants at oral 
argument: "[s]o, is it your position that … these were lives?" And they 
responded: "It is, Justice Cook. I think that the … embryo is a life, but 
the issue today is whether an embryo is a child protected under the 
[Wrongful Death Act]." Supreme Court of Alabama, Supreme Court O/A 
Mobile Alabama, YouTube 1:17:49 (Sep. 21, 2023).  
The defendants nevertheless present a "catch-22" argument in 
support of the dismissal of those claims. On the one hand, they allege 
that the plaintiffs' wrongful-death claims were properly dismissed 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
82 
 
because their frozen embryos are not "minor children" under the 
Wrongful Death Act. On the other hand, they allege that the trial court 
properly dismissed the plaintiffs' negligence and wantonness claims 
because their frozen embryos each represent "a life." I am deeply troubled 
by this argument and the consequences that could result from adopting 
this position.  
However, as explained below, there is no need for this Court to 
reach this "catch-22" argument at this time because it is simply too soon 
to dismiss those claims under Alabama's liberal pleading rules. It is for 
this reason that I would reverse the trial court's dismissal of the 
plaintiffs' negligence and wantonness claims.    
I.  The Plaintiffs' Wrongful-Death Claims 
A. The Wrongful Death Act -- A Purely Statutory Claim 
This Court has previously observed that wrongful-death actions 
"are purely statutory," meaning "[t]here was no such action or right of 
action at common law." Kennedy v. Davis, 171 Ala. 609, 611-12, 55 So. 
104, 104 (1911) (emphasis added). The Alabama Legislature, therefore, 
has the responsibility of declaring who is covered by this private right of 
action.  
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
83 
 
The Legislature originally passed the Wrongful Death Act in 1872, 
and the Act was later codified in the Code of Alabama in 1876. See Ala. 
Code 1876, § 2899. The Act states, in relevant part, that "[w]hen the 
death of a minor child is caused by the wrongful act, omission, or 
negligence of any person, … the father, or the mother, ... of the minor 
may commence an action." § 6-5-391(a) (emphasis added).  
Unfortunately, the Wrongful Death Act does not define the term 
"minor child." Although the Act was last amended in 1995, see Ala. Acts 
1995, Act No. 95-774, § 1, the phrase "[w]hen the death of a minor child 
is caused by the wrongful act … of any person" has remained unchanged 
from the Act's initial inception in 1872, and no change has ever been 
made to it bearing on the meaning of the term "minor child."  
B. We Should Use the Original Public Meaning of the Wrongful Death 
Act's Words  
 
With no definition of "minor child" having been provided by the 
Legislature, this Court must decide how to interpret the meaning of that 
term as used in the Wrongful Death Act. I believe in originalism, which 
means that we should apply the original meaning of the words as those 
words were used in the Act when it was passed in 1872. In other words, 
I apply the "original public meaning" of the words.  As Justice Mitchell 
SC-2022-0515; SC-2022-0579 
 
84 
 
has observed, "the meaning of a law is its original public meaning, not its 
modern meaning." Mitchell, supra, at 1092 (some emphasis added; some 
emphasis in original); see also Barnett v. Jones, 338 So. 3d 757, 768 (Ala. 
2021) (Mitchell, J., concurring specially); Ex parte Pinkard, 373 So. 3d 
192, 207 (Ala. 2022) (Mitchell, J., concurring specially); Gulf Shores City 
Bd. of Educ. v. Mackey, [Ms. 1210353, Dec. 22, 2022] __ So. 3d __, __ (Ala. 
2022) (Mitchell, J., concurring in part and concurring in the result).37   
One of the leading scholars on this approach has undoubtedly been 
Justice Antonin Scalia. In Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal 
Texts 33 (Thomson/West 2012), Justice Scalia and Bryan A. Garner 
explain that when a court is required to interpret the words in a statute, 
it should consider "how a reasonable reader, fully competent in the 
language, would have understood the text at the time it was issued." 
(Emphasis added).38 See also id. at 78­92 (referring to this as the "fixed-
 
37See also Mitchell, supra, at 1103 (explaining that "[w]hen judges 
say words should be given their 'ordinary' meaning, we do not mean that 
each word in a text always takes its literal meaning or its most 
statistically common meaning. We mean instead that words must be 
given the meaning that an ordinary reasonable person would ascribe to 
them after reading them in context."). 
 
38As Justice Mitchell notes in Textualism in Alabama, supra, "[o]ur 
court, along with the U.S. Supreme Court and courts within the United 
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meaning canon" and as the "original public meaning" of a statute); New 
Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U.S. ____, ____, 139 S. Ct. 532, 539 (2019) 
(noting that "'[i]t's a "fundamental canon of statutory construction" that 
words generally should be "interpreted as taking their ordinary ... 
meaning ... at the time Congress enacted the statute."' Wisconsin Central 
Ltd. v. United States, 585 U.S. ____, ____, 138 S. Ct. 2067, 2074, 201 L. 
Ed. 2d 490 (quoting Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42, 100 S. Ct. 
311, 62 L. Ed. 2d 199 (1979)).").39  
Because "[w]ords change meaning over time, and often in 
unpredictable ways," Justice Scalia and Garner explain that it is 
important to give words in statutes the meaning they had when they 
were adopted to avoid changing what the law is. Scalia & Garner, supra, 
at 78 (emphasis added). "By anchoring the meaning of a text to the 
objective indication of its words at a fixed point in time, … a judges' 
 
States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, has cited Reading Law 
numerous times." 74 Ala. L. Rev. at 1107. 
 
39Consistent with applying original public meaning, this Court has 
explained that "'[t]he court knows nothing of the intention of an act, 
except from the words in which it is expressed, applied to the facts 
existing at the time, the meaning of the law being the law itself.'" 
Maxwell v. State, 89 Ala. 150, 161, 7 So. 824, 827 (1890) (citation 
omitted).  
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abilities to 'update' laws as they go along" is constrained. Mitchell, supra, 
at 1096. 
Again, because this Court is in the judicial branch, its role is 
limited, and applying the "original public meaning" of the words in a 
statute helps this Court to stay within its constitutional role, which is a 
fundamental part of democracy. See Scalia & Garner, supra, at 82-83 
(recognizing that "[o]riginalism is the only approach to text that is 
compatible with democracy.  When government-adopted texts are given 
a new meaning, the law is changed; and changing written law, like 
adopting written law in the first place, is the function of the first two 
branches of government -- elected legislators and … elected executive 
officials and their delegates."). After all, if judges could freely invest old 
statutory terms with new meanings, this Court would risk amending 
legislation outside the "single, finely wrought and exhaustively 
considered, procedure" the Constitution commands. Immigration and 
Naturalization Serv. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 951 (1953).     
1. The Original Public Meaning of "Minor Child" Can Be Found in 
the Common Law -- "The authorities … are unanimous." 
 
The common law answers the question whether the term "minor 
child" as used in the Wrongful Death Act was broad enough in 1872 to 
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reach a frozen embryo today. In Alabama, it is a well-settled principle of 
law that the common law governs unless expressly changed by the 
statutes passed by our Legislature. Our Court has repeatedly held that 
"'[a]ll statutes are construed in reference to the principles of the common 
law; and it is not to be presumed that there is an intention to modify, or 
to abrogate it, further than may be expressed, or than the case may 
absolutely require.'" State v. Grant, [Ms. 1210198, Sept. 9, 2022] ____ So. 
3d ____, ____ (Ala. 2022) (quoting Beale v. Posey, 72 Ala. 323, 330 (1882)) 
(emphasis added); see also Ex parte Christopher, 145 So. 3d 60, 65 (Ala. 
2013) (observing that "'statutes [in derogation or modification of the 
common law] are presumed not to alter the common law in any way not 
expressly declared'" (quoting Arnold v. State, 353 So. 2d 524, 526 (Ala. 
1977) (emphasis added)).40   
 
40See also Holmes v. Sanders, 729 So. 2d 314, 316 (Ala. 1999) 
("'[T]he common law is the base upon which all of the laws of this State 
have been constructed, and when our courts are called upon to construe 
a statute, … they must read the statute in light of the common law.'") 
(citation omitted); Ivey v. Wiggins, 276 Ala. 106, 108, 159 So. 2d 618, 619 
(1964) (recognizing that "[l]egislative enactments in modification of the 
common law should be clear and such as to prevent reasonable doubt as 
to the legislative intent and of the limits of such change").  Further 
"statutes being in derogation of the common law, must be strictly 
construed, and cannot be extended in their operation and effect by 
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The Alabama Code also expressly mandates that the common law 
remains in effect absent actual changes by the Legislature. See § 1-3-1, 
Ala. Code 1975 ("The common law of England, so far as it is not 
inconsistent with the Constitution, laws and institutions of this state, 
shall, together with such institutions and laws, be the rule of decisions, 
and shall continue in force, except as from time to time it may be altered 
or repealed by the Legislature." (emphasis added)). 
Similarly, Justice Mitchell has previously recognized that "[a] 
statute that uses a common-law term, without defining it, adopts its 
common-law meaning."  Mitchell, supra, at 1130 (emphasis added).  
Other authorities agree that we must "presume the legislature retained 
the common-law meaning." 3A Norman J. Singer and J.D. Shambie 
Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 69:9 (7th ed. 2010) (quoted 
approvingly by Mitchell, supra, at 1130). 
So, what did the common law indicate in 1872?  There is no doubt 
that the common law did not consider an unborn infant to be a child 
capable of being killed for the purpose of civil liability or criminal-
 
doubtful implication." Mobile Battle House, Inc. v. Wolf, 271 Ala. 632, 
639, 126 So. 2d 486, 493 (1961) (emphasis added). 
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homicide liability. In fact, for 100 years after the passage of the Wrongful 
Death Act, our caselaw did not allow a claim for the death of an unborn 
infant, confirming that the common law in 1872 did not recognize that an 
unborn infant (much less a frozen embryo) was a "minor child" who could 
be killed.  
For example, in 1926, this Court, for the first time, addressed the 
issue whether the Wrongful Death Act permitted claims for the death of 
an unborn fetus who died from prenatal injuries. Citing cases from other 
jurisdictions, this Court in Stanford v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway 
Co., 214 Ala. 611, 612, 108 So. 566, 566 (1926), held that the Wrongful 
Death Act did not permit recovery for injuries during pregnancy that 
resulted in the death of the fetus.    
In support of that holding, our Court wrote: 
"'The doctrine of the civil law and the ecclesiastical and 
admiralty courts … that an unborn child may be regarded as 
in esse … is a mere legal fiction, which, so far as we have been 
able to discover, has not been indulged in by the courts of 
common law to the extent of allowing an action by an infant 
for injuries occasioned before its birth. If the action can be 
maintained, it necessarily follows that an infant may 
maintain an action against its own mother for injuries 
occasioned by the negligence of the mother while pregnant 
with it. We are of opinion that the action will not lie.'" 
 
214 Ala. at 612, 108 So. at 567 (quoting Allaire v. St. Luke's Hosp., 184 
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Ill. 359, 368, 56 N.E. 638, 640 (1900)) (emphasis added). We emphasized: 
"The authorities, however, are unanimous in holding that a prenatal 
injury affords no basis for an action in damages, in favor either of the 
child or its personal representative." 214 Ala. at 612, 108 So. at 566 
(emphasis added).  
For many years afterwards, this Court maintained this position. 
See, e.g., Birmingham Baptist Hosp. v. Branton, 218 Ala. 464, 467, 118 
So. 741, 743 (1928) (recognizing that "[t]his court has established a 
general line of demarcation between the civil rights of the mother and 
child to be born. It is concurrent with separate existence of the mother 
and child by the birth; and parental injury before the birth is no basis for 
action in damages by the child or its personal representative."); Snow v. 
Allen, 227 Ala. 615, 619, 151 So. 468, 471 (1933) (recognizing that "[s]o 
long as the child is within the mother's womb, it is a part of the mother, 
and for any injury to it, while yet unborn, damages would be recoverable 
by the mother in a proper case").  
Thus, the common law in Alabama before 1872, and for 100 years 
afterward, was clear: "'The doctrine of the civil law … that an unborn 
child may be regarded as in esse … is a mere legal fiction, which … has 
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not been indulged in by the courts of common law to the extent of allowing 
an action by an infant for injuries occasioned before its birth.'"  Stanford, 
214 Ala. at 612, 108 So. at 566 (citation omitted; emphasis added).41 
2. The Main Opinion's Responses to the Common-Law are Mistaken 
The main opinion provides four responses to the position that the 
common law did not consider an unborn infant to be a minor child capable 
of being killed for the purpose of civil liability or criminal-homicide 
liability: (1) that the common-law homicide rule was merely an 
"evidentiary rule," (2) that a dictionary from the 1800s includes a 
definition of "child" that did not provide an "exception" for unborn 
infants, (3) that William Blackstone (among other things) "grouped" the 
"rights" of unborn children with the "Rights of Persons," and (4) that the 
defendants' argument seeks an "exception" to the definition of "minor 
child" for frozen embryos.  Each of these arguments is mistaken.  I will 
address them one at a time.   
First, the main opinion notes that "[i]t is true, as Justice Cook 
 
41Again, we must follow the original public meaning of the statute, 
even if we might believe that the meaning is ill-informed, unwise, or 
outdated.  If a meaning of a statute is, in fact, ill-informed, unwise, or 
outdated, the Legislature -- not this Court -- must amend or update that 
statute.  
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emphasizes, that the common law spared defendants from criminal-
homicide liability for killing an unborn child unless the prosecution could 
prove that the child had been 'born alive' before dying from its injuries." 
____ So. 3d at ____ n.6. Nevertheless, the main opinion goes on to assert 
that the common-law "born-alive" rule was "an evidentiary rule rather 
than … a substantive limitation on personhood." Id.42  
The main opinion cites no Alabama authority in support of its 
"evidentiary rule" argument. The only authority cited is a law-review 
article from 2009, which in turn relies on a second law-review article from 
 
42The main opinion also asserts that we can ignore the common-law 
criminal-law rule that it admits existed, because the criminal law has 
always been "'out of step with the treatment of prenatal life in other 
areas of law.'"  ____ So. 3d at ____ n.6 (quoting Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 247). 
It does not cite any Alabama law for this assertion. 
   
Regardless, this assertion is directly contrary to our Court's 
repeated holdings that there should be "congruence" between the 
Wrongful Death Act and Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes (as 
discussed more fully below). See Mack, 79 So. 3d at 611. Even if it were 
not, this argument is nevertheless irrelevant given that the common-law 
rule in the civil-law context in Alabama was the same rule as the 
criminal-law rule.  See, e.g., Stanford, 214 Ala. at 612, 108 So. at 566.   
 
Further, Dobbs did not say that the criminal law could be ignored 
in determining the meaning of the common law.  Instead, the main 
opinion's quote from Dobbs merely concerned a debate over the "basis" 
for a different common-law rule (the quickening rule) -- an issue that the 
Dobbs Court did not even decide.  597 U.S. at 247.    
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1987.43  See id. (citing Joanne Pedone, Filling the Void: Model Legislation 
for Fetal Homicide Crimes, 43 Colum. J. L. & Soc. Probs. 77, 82 (2009), 
citing in turn Clarke D. Forsythe, Homicide of the Unborn Child: The 
Born Alive Rule and Other Legal Anachronisms, 21 Val. U. L. Rev. 563, 
586 (1987)). 
Regardless, the main opinion is mistaken.  Our caselaw makes clear 
that this common law was a substantive rule of law -- both in the criminal 
context and in the civil context.  Stanford, 214 Ala. at 612, 108 So. at 567 
(concluding that a wrongful-death action for an unborn child "'will not 
lie'" (citation omitted; emphasis added)); Clarke v. State, 117 Ala. 1, 8, 
23 So. 671, 674 (1898) (recognizing that "'[a]n infant in its mother's 
womb, not being in rerum natura, is not considered as a person who can 
 
43Although the main opinion cites to Dobbs in an apparent effort to 
support these two law-review articles, Dobbs did not hold, or even 
suggest, that this common-law rule was merely an evidentiary rule and 
not a substantive rule of law.  Instead, as noted above, the page in Dobbs 
cited by the main opinion contains a discussion of a debate over the 
possible "basis" for the "quickening rule." Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 247.  
Moreover, Dobbs concluded that even the debate over the "basis" of the 
"quickening rule" was "of little importance."  Id.  In the present appeals, 
the "basis" for the common-law rule that an unborn infant could not be 
killed is not at issue.  Even if we were to assume that the "basis" for this 
common-law rule was unwise, it was still the rule in effect at the time 
the Wrongful Death Act was passed and therefore is part of the original 
public meaning of that Act unless the Legislature amends it.    
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be killed within the description of murder ….'" (quoting 3 Russell on 
Crimes (6th ed.)) (emphasis added)).  The main opinion does not cite or 
distinguish either of these Alabama cases.  Nor would it matter if it was 
an "evidentiary rule" because even an evidentiary rule would still 
indicate the original public meaning of the statute (that is, what a 
"reasonable reader" at the time of passage understood the law to be). The 
main opinion also cites no caselaw holding that an "evidentiary rule" 
(even if one applied here) should be ignored in determining the original 
public meaning.  Further, even if the common law were a mere 
evidentiary rule (and it was not), it would be an irrebuttable evidentiary 
rule as clearly shown by the cases and language cited above.   
Second, the main opinion argues that the "leading dictionary of that 
time defined the word 'child' as 'the immediate progeny of parents' and 
indicated that this term encompassed children in the womb."  ____ So. 3d 
at ____ (citing Noah Webster et al., An American Dictionary of the 
English Language 198 (1864) (quoting the first listed definition). 
However, this Court cannot ascertain the meaning of disputed terms 
merely by "plugging a string of words into a dictionary and running with 
the first results that come up." Mitchell, supra, at 1091. Instead, "words 
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are given meaning by their context." Scalia & Garner, supra, at 56. 
Here, the context indicates that the main opinion is mistaken.  The 
cited dictionary does not "indicate[] that this term encompassed children 
in the womb."  Instead, it indicates the opposite. The same first definition 
of "child" also states: "The term is applied to infants from their birth; but 
the time when they cease ordinarily to be so called, is not defined by 
custom." Webster, supra, at 198. (emphasis added).44 "From their birth" 
 
44The main opinion argues in a footnote that the language in the 
first definition of "child" merely "contrasts newborns with older children 
in order to make the point that there is no clear-cut time at which a young 
person transitions from childhood to adulthood." ____ So. 3d at ____ n.5. 
But this is not the plain meaning of the language in the definition of 
"child": "[t]he term is applied to infants from their birth." Webster, supra, 
at 198.  And, our Court is not in a position to speculate about what the 
subjective intent of the author of an 1864 dictionary might have been -- 
that is, whether this plain language was included merely "in order to 
make the point." See Scalia & Garner, supra, at 30 ("Subjective intent is 
beside the point. … Objective meaning is what we are after …."). 
 
In that same footnote (and in a parenthetical in the text of the main 
opinion), the main opinion also quotes the last line of the definition in 
this dictionary (line 41 -- under the seventh definition).  ____ So. 3d at 
____ n.5. However, this quotation is simply an illustration. Webster, 
supra, at 198 ("To be with child, to be pregnant").  Again, this illustration 
does not contradict the common law or Alabama law of the time.  In fact, 
to the extent that this illustration could mean anything in these appeals, 
it would tend to show that a frozen embryo outside of a mother would not 
have been part of the public meaning of "minor child" in 1872 because 
there would be no mother who was "pregnant." 
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means after they were born.  
Further, the language quoted in the text of the main opinion is 
general in nature ("immediate progeny of parents") and thus fails to 
answer the question whether a frozen embryo is a "minor child" as that 
term was understood in 1872.  This general definition also does not 
contradict the common law in any way.  As explained above, the common 
law (and Alabama law) is definite, and it does indicate that, in 1872, the 
public meaning of "minor child" as used in the Wrongful Death Act did 
not include an unborn infant (or a frozen embryo).  
In the same vein, the main opinion cites Blackstone's 
Commentaries and argues (1) that it "expressly grouped the rights of 
unborn children" with the "'Rights of Persons,'" (2) "consistently 
described unborn children as 'infant[s]' or 'child[ren],'" and (3) spoke of 
"such children as sharing in the same right to life that is 'inherent by 
nature in every individual.'" ____ So. 3d at ____ (quoting 1 William 
 
Finally, the main opinion argues that the definition of a different 
word --"childbearing" -- "drives home the point" when it "describes 
'childbearing' as the act of 'bearing children' in the womb."  Id. However, 
the definition is far less clear.  Instead it states that "childbearing" is 
"[t]he act of producing or bringing forth children; parturition."   
 
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Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England *125-26). The main 
opinion's 
characterization 
of 
these 
principles 
in 
Blackstone's 
Commentaries is mistaken.  
First, none of this contradicts the Alabama caselaw cited above. In 
fact, the snippets quoted by the main opinion do not state, one way or the 
other, whether an unborn infant could be killed under the common law 
(whether for civil or criminal purposes).  Second, how a list of rights were 
"grouped" seems insignificant at best, and the main opinion provides no 
explanation for why this is even relevant, much less important.  Third, 
although the main opinion's assertion that children share the "same right 
to life" is certainly true, it does not help explain why a frozen embryo is 
a "minor child" as that term was understood in 1872 when the Act was 
adopted. 
 Finally, the main opinion incorrectly characterizes the defendants' 
argument as seeking an exception to the definition of "minor child."  The 
very beginning of the main opinion argues:  
"This Court has long held that unborn children are 
'children' for purposes of Alabama's Wrongful Death of a 
Minor Act …. The central question presented … is whether 
the Act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for 
extrauterine children -- that is, unborn children who are 
located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are 
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killed."   
 
____ So. 3d at ____ (emphasis added).   
In making this assertion, the main opinion assumes the answer to 
the relevant question -- i.e., whether a "frozen embryo" is a "minor child" 
as that term was understood in 1872 in the Wrongful Death Act -- by 
immediately labeling frozen embryos as "extrauterine children" and 
deeming them "unborn children." In other words, the main opinion 
assumes that a frozen embryo is a "child" without further context or 
analysis and does so in the second sentence of the opinion.    
The main opinion then asks an irrelevant question -- "whether the 
Act contains an unwritten exception" for "extrauterine children." ____ So. 
3d at ____ (emphasis added).  No party has suggested or requested an 
"exception" to anything in these appeals. Assuming the answer to the 
question and then framing this debate as whether an "exception" exists 
is semantics. It does not provide an answer to the relevant question and 
does nothing to respond to the common-law rule. 
In short, the common-law rule as stated by our Court in Stanford is 
the original public meaning of the term "minor child" as it was 
understood in 1872 in the Wrongful Death Act.  Stanford, 214 Ala. at 612, 
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108 So. at 567 (1926) (concluding "'that an unborn child may be regarded 
as in esse … is a mere legal fiction, which, so far as we have been able to 
discover, has not been indulged in by the courts of common law to the 
extent of allowing an action by an infant for injuries occasioned before its 
birth'" (citation omitted)).  And, our Court has made clear that "'statutes 
[in derogation or modification of the common law] are presumed not to 
alter the common law in any way not expressly declared.'" Ex parte 
Christopher, 145 So. 3d at 65 (citation omitted). Thus, any update to the 
Wrongful Death Act must be done by the Legislature and not this Court. 
C. Prior Caselaw Interpreting and Applying the Wrongful Death Act 
Based on Congruence with Alabama's Criminal-Homicide Statutes and 
Action by the Legislature 
What about this Court's more recent caselaw interpreting the 
Wrongful Death Act? Although the members of this Court believe in 
originalism and textualism, we should not ignore our prior caselaw 
unless we are willing to overrule it.  After the cases cited above, the next 
time we tackled these issues was in 1972 when we decided Huskey v. 
Smith, 289 Ala. 52, 265 So. 2d 596 (1972).  In Huskey, for the first time, 
100 years after the passage of the Wrongful Death Act, we allowed an 
action for unborn infant who was viable at the time of a prenatal injury 
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and thereafter was born alive, but who later died, thus partially 
overruling Stanford.     
Why did we partially overrule Stanford in Huskey?  One key reason 
was our Court's recognition that the purpose and reach of the Wrongful 
Death Act was tied to the State's criminal-homicide statutes: 
"By the criminal law, it is a great crime to kill the child after 
it is able to stir in the mother's womb, by an injury inflicted 
upon the person of the mother, and it may be murder if the 
child is born alive and dies of prenatal injuries. Clarke v. 
State, 117 Ala. 1, 23 So. 671 (1897). One of the purposes of our 
wrongful death statute is to prevent homicides. Bell v. Riley 
Bus Lines, [257 Ala. 120, 57 So. 2d 612 (1952)]. If we 
continued to follow Stanford, which followed then existing 
precedent, a defendant could be responsible criminally for the 
homicide of a fetal child but would have no similar 
responsibility civilly. This is incongruous." 
Huskey, 289 Ala. at 55, 265 So. 2d at 597-98 (second and third emphasis 
added).  
Then, in 1993, our Court made clear that it would not expand 
recovery under the Wrongful Death Act beyond that which was expressly 
provided in the Act absent a clear direction from the Legislature. First, 
in Lollar v. Tankersley, 613 So. 2d 1249, 1252-53 (Ala. 1993), we 
explained that, "[w]ithout a clearer expression of legislative intent," we 
would decline to hold that the Wrongful Death Act "creates a cause of 
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action for the wrongful death of a fetus that has never attained viability" 
and noted that "it appears that no court in the United States has, without 
a clear legislative directive, recognized a cause of action for the wrongful 
death of a fetus that has never attained a state of development exceeding 
that attained in this case." Then, in Gentry v. Gilmore, 613 So. 2d 1241, 
1244 (Ala. 1993), we repeated this sentiment and explained:  
"We follow the reasoning of a majority of jurisdictions and 
hold that our statute provides no cause of action for the 
wrongful death of a nonviable fetus. In so holding, we point 
out that, with the exception of Georgia, the Gentrys' position 
[that a wrongful-death action exists for the death of a 
nonviable fetus] apparently is not the law in any American 
jurisdiction where there is no clear legislative direction to 
include a nonviable fetus within the class of those covered by 
the wrongful death acts. See Miccolis v. AMICA Mutual 
Insurance Co., 587 A.2d 67, 71 (R.I. 1991); Gary A. Meadows, 
Comment, Wrongful Death and the Lost Society of the 
Unborn, 13 J. Legal Med. 99, 107 (1992); and Sheldon R. 
Shapiro, Annotation, Right to Maintain Action or to Recover 
Damages for Death of Unborn Child, 84 A.L.R.3d 411, 453-54, 
§ 5[a] (1978 & Supp. 1992)."  
 
(Emphasis added.)  
 
Using language similar to Huskey, Justice Houston wrote specially 
in both cases and argued for an approach that he believed would be 
"consistent with the criminal law." Noting the definition of "person" in 
Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes at that time, Justice Houston 
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wrote: "There should not be different standards in wrongful death and 
homicide statutes, given that the avowed public purpose of the wrongful 
death statute is to prevent homicide and to punish the culpable party and 
not to compensate for the loss." Gentry, 613 So. 2d at 1245 (Houston, J., 
concurring in the result); Lollar, 613 So. 2d at 1253 (Houston, J., 
concurring in the result). 
1. The Brody Act and This Court's Reiteration of Congruence 
Between Alabama's Criminal-Homicide Statutes and the Wrongful 
Death Act 
 
In 2006, nearly 13 years after Justice Houston's observations in 
Lollar and Gentry, the Alabama Legislature enacted the "Brody Act," Act 
No. 2006-419, Ala. Acts 2006, codified as § 13A-6-1, Ala. Code 1975. The 
Brody Act amended the definition of "person" in Alabama's criminal-
homicide statutes to expand who could be deemed a victim of a criminal 
homicide to include an "unborn child in utero." See § 13A-6-1(a)(3), Ala. 
Code 1975. 
Before that amendment, the definition of "person" in Alabama's 
criminal-homicide statutes was: 
"[A] human being who had been born and was alive at the time 
of the homicidal act." 
 
See Act No. 607, § 2001(2), Ala. Acts 1977, formerly codified as § 13A-6-
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1(2) (emphasis added). After the passage of the Brody Act, however, the 
definition of "person" in the criminal-homicide statutes became:  
"[A] human being, including an unborn child in utero at any 
stage of development, regardless of viability."  
 
§ 13A-6-1(a)(3) (emphasis added).  
Following the passage of the Brody Act, our Court decided Mack v. 
Carmack, 79 So. 3d 597 (Ala. 2011), in which we held that a plaintiff could 
bring a claim under the Wrongful Death Act for the death of a previable 
in utero fetus. Our holding in Mack rested, in large part, on the 
Legislature's adoption of the Brody Act. Specifically, we noted that the 
Brody Act "constitute[d] clear legislative intent to protect even nonviable 
fetuses from homicidal acts." 79 So. 3d at 610. We also explained that the 
public purpose of our wrongful-death statutes, including the Wrongful 
Death Act, is to prevent homicide and that "this Court repeatedly has 
emphasized the need for congruence between the criminal law and our 
civil wrongful-death statutes." 79 So. 3d at 611 (emphasis added).  
Thus, we held, after considering "the legislature's amendment of 
Alabama's homicide statute to include protection for 'an unborn child in 
utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability,' § 13A-6-
1(a)(3)," that the Wrongful Death Act should likewise permit an action 
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for the death of the plaintiff's previable, in utero fetus given that the 
purpose of the Act is to prevent the death of a child. Id.  In so holding, we 
quoted with approval Justice Houston's special concurrences from Gentry 
and Lollar regarding the need for congruence between Alabama's 
wrongful-death statutes and its criminal-homicide statutes given that 
the purpose of those statutes is to prevent homicide and " 'to punish the 
culpable party and not to compensate for the loss.'" Id. at 610 (quoting 
Gentry, 613 So. 2d at 1245 (Houston, J., concurring in the result); and 
Lollar, 613 So. 2d at 1253 (Houston, J., concurring in the result)).  
Five years after this Court's decision in Mack, our Court reached 
an identical result in Stinnett v. Kennedy, 232 So. 3d 202 (Ala. 2016). In 
that case, we explained that "borrowing the definition of 'person' from the 
criminal Homicide Act to inform [us] as to who is protected under the civil 
Wrongful Death Act made sense." 232 So. 3d at 215 (emphasis added).  
In the present appeals, the parties have neither asserted that our 
holdings or reasoning in either Mack or Stinnett are wrong, nor have they 
asked us to overrule those decisions. See Clay Kilgore Constr., Inc. v. 
Buchalter/Grant, L.L.C., 949 So. 2d 893, 898 (Ala. 2006) (noting absence 
of a specific request to overrule existing authority and stating that, 
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"[e]ven if we would be amenable to such a request, we are not inclined to 
abandon precedent without a specific invitation to do so").45 I therefore 
see no reason to abandon this precedent in deciding the question at issue 
in the present appeals. 
2. The Main Opinion is Overruling Mack and Stinnett 
 
The main opinion alleges that this Court's decisions in Mack and 
Stinnett do not "mean that the definition of 'child' in the Wrongful Death 
of a Minor Act must precisely mirror the definition of 'person' in our 
criminal-homicide laws." ____ So. 3d at ____. Specifically, the main 
opinion alleges that, because criminal liability is "more severe than civil 
liability," the "set of conduct that can support a criminal prosecution is 
almost always narrower than the conduct that can support a civil suit."  
____ So. 3d at ____. According to the main opinion, an argument to the 
contrary is "not only illogical, it was rejected in Stinnett itself." ____ So. 
3d at ____. Based on the foregoing, the main opinion concludes that the 
definition of "person" in Alabama's criminal-homicide law provides a 
"floor" for the definition of personhood in wrongful-death actions, not a 
 
45See also Alabama Dep't of Revenue v. Greenetrack, Inc., 369 So. 
3d 640 (Ala. 2022) (declining to overrule precedent when the parties did 
not expressly ask this Court to do so). 
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"ceiling." ____ So. 3d at ____. 
  
Contrary to the main opinion's assertion, our Court in Stinnett 
expressly stated that it was "borrowing the definition of 'person' from the 
criminal Homicide Act to inform [us] as to who is protected under the civil 
Wrongful Death Act." 232 So. 3d at 215 (emphasis added). By using the 
phrase "borrowing the definition," it is difficult to imagine how much 
clearer our Court could have been that the definitions of the terms 
"person" and "minor child" were to be interpreted the same.  Thus, the 
main opinion is simply incorrect when it states that Stinnett "did not say 
that."  ____ So. 3d at ____.   
Additionally, in reaching the above conclusion, the main opinion 
mistakes statutory definitions for liability standards. It is certainly true 
that criminal law includes additional defenses (and sometimes includes 
additional elements) and thus contains a "narrower" standard of liability 
than civil law, but it is also true that definitions of terms can be the same 
in the criminal-homicide statutes and the civil wrongful-death statutes.    
Stinnett illustrates this. In that case, the plaintiff sued a physician 
for the wrongful death of her unborn fetus pursuant to the Wrongful 
Death Act. The defendant, emphasizing the congruence discussion in 
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Mack, argued that an exception to liability for medical personnel in the 
criminal-homicide statutes also prevented malpractice liability under the 
Wrongful Death Act. See Stinnett, 232 So. 3d at 214-15 (citing § 13A-6-
1(b), Ala. Code 1975, which provides a defense to homicide for a physician 
providing medical care for a "[m]istake, or unintentional error").  
Not surprisingly, our Court disagreed.  Relying on Mack, we 
explained that the liability standard differed between the criminal-
homicide statutes and the civil Wrongful Death Act.  Therefore, this 
Court held, the defendant could be liable for medical malpractice even if 
she were a physician and committed an "unintentional error."  We wrote: 
"[Mack's] attempt to harmonize who is a 'person' 
protected from homicide under both the Homicide Act and 
Wrongful Death Act, however, was never intended to 
synchronize civil and criminal liability under those acts, or 
the defenses to such liability."  
 
232 So. 3d at 215 (emphasis added); ____ So. 3d at ____ (quoting the same 
language).  Thus, contrary to the main opinion's position, our Court in 
Stinnett made clear that our holding on liability standards had no impact 
on our decision to "borrow[]" the definition of "person" (that is, the victim) 
in Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes to determine who a "minor 
child" was under the Wrongful Death Act. 
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Moreover, the main opinion's reasoning that the definition of 
"person" in Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes provides a "floor" for 
the definition of "child" in wrongful-death actions, not a "ceiling," is also 
illogical given the changes brought about by the Brody Act.46 The 
Legislature made an intentional decision to extend the criminal-homicide 
statutes beyond the common law when it passed the Brody Act.  In sharp 
contrast, the Legislature has never extended the relevant portion of the 
Wrongful Death Act, despite the passage of 150 years. Yet, the main 
opinion now decides that the definition in this unamended civil statute 
goes further than the definition in the criminal-homicide statutes that 
the Legislature did extend.  
In sum, the main opinion overrules Mack and Stinnett47 sub silentio 
 
46When construing a criminal statute in a civil action, the Rule of 
Lenity should be applied because it would be "inconceivable" to give "the 
language defining the violation ... one meaning (a narrow one) for the 
penal sanctions and a different meaning (a more expansive one) for the 
private compensatory action." Scalia & Garner, supra, at 297. 
 
47The year after this Court decided Mack, supra, it was once again 
called upon to address the reach of the Wrongful Death Act in Hamilton 
v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 728 (Ala. 2021). The main opinion quotes Hamilton for 
the proposition that a wrongful-death-act claim can be brought for "'any 
unborn child.'" ____ So. 3d at ____ (quoting Hamilton, 97 So. 3d at 735).  
This quote is correct, but it does not answer the relevant question in these 
cases -- that is, whether a frozen embryo is a "minor child" as that term 
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by decoupling the definitions in the criminal-homicide statutes and the 
Wrongful Death Act, by removing the reasoning of those decisions, and 
by overlooking our other caselaw requiring congruence between the 
definition of "person" in Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes and the 
definition of "minor child" in the Wrongful Death Act.48 
 
was used in 1872 in the Wrongful Death Act.  Further, Hamilton did not 
change the holding in Mack and instead expressly stated that "Mack is 
now controlling precedent …. Therefore, we will apply Mack in deciding 
this appeal."  Hamilton, 97 So. 3d at 735.  Moreover, to the extent that 
there is any confusion about whether the homicide statutes' definition of 
"person" has been "borrow[ed]" (and thus is both a "floor" and a "ceiling" 
for the scope of the term "minor child" in the Wrongful Death Act), 
Stinnett governs because it was decided after Hamilton. 
 
48The main opinion argues that the "bulk of [my] dissent is 
animated by the view that Mack was wrongfully decided and that, 
contrary to its holding, unborn children are not 'children' under the Act 
after all." ____ So. 3d at ____ n.4.  This is inaccurate. The opinions in 
these cases are settled law, and I have not questioned them or their 
reasoning.  Moreover, as explained above, Mack arose after the 
Legislature made an express change to the criminal-homicide statutes 
that broadened the definition of "person" beyond the common law for the 
first time.  So that there is no doubt, the law in Alabama is clear (since 
the Legislature amended the criminal-homicide statutes) that killing an 
"unborn child in utero" is both a homicide and actionable under the 
Wrongful Death Act -- and I agree with this law.  
  
Here, we are called upon to decide a question that this Court has 
not decided before -- whether a frozen embryo is a "minor child" under 
the Wrongful Death Act.  There are two possible approaches to this: (1) 
follow the holding of Mack and Stinnett (that is, use the homicide 
definition of "person" adopted by the Legislature in the criminal-homicide 
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3. The Plaintiffs' Arguments Regarding the Brody Act are Mistaken  
Because I would follow our prior precedent that there must be 
"congruence" between the definition of "person" in Alabama's criminal-
homicide statutes and the definition of "minor child" in the Wrongful 
Death Act, I must consider whether a frozen embryo is within the 
definition of "person" in the criminal-homicide statutes, as amended by 
the Brody Act -- a question that is hotly debated in the briefs.  Because 
the main opinion holds that the definition in the criminal-homicide 
statutes is merely a "floor," it does not engage on this question.   
 
As noted above, after the passage of the Brody Act, the definition of 
"person" in the criminal-homicide statutes became: "[A] human being, 
including an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, 
regardless of viability." § 13A-6-1(a)(3) (emphasis added).  The primary 
argument between the parties is over the phrase "including an unborn 
child in utero." On the one hand, the defendants argue strongly that the 
 
statutes) or (2) independently determine the meaning of that term by 
following the original public meaning of that term.  As explained above, 
the result is the same under either approach.   The main opinion must 
choose one way or the other.  Either Mack and Stinnett were correct and 
the main opinion is bound by the criminal-homicide statutes' definition 
for "person," or the main opinion is bound by the original public meaning 
of the term "minor child."   
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phrase "including an unborn child in utero" indicates that the 
Legislature, by adding this phrase to the definition, implied that "human 
being" would not otherwise include an unborn child in utero (and 
therefore would not include a frozen embryo, which was not added).  On 
the other hand, the plaintiffs argue just as strongly that this phrase is 
not intended to be a limiting phrase but, instead, merely provides one 
example of a "human being," thus implying that "human being" is broad 
enough to include a frozen embryo.  
 
First, this Court has recognized that both the preamble and the title 
of an act may be used to resolve any ambiguities in the text. See Newton 
v. City of Tuscaloosa, 251 Ala. 209, 218, 36 So. 2d 487, 494 (1948) 
(recognizing that "both the preamble and the title of an act may be looked 
to in order to remove ambiguities and uncertainty in the enacting 
clause"); City of Bessemer v. McClain, 957 So. 2d 1061, 1075 (Ala. 2006) 
(noting that our Court "can also look at the title or preamble of the act"); 
Scalia & Garner, supra, at 33 (recognizing that the textual purpose of an 
act is "vital" to its context).  
The Brody Act provides that it "shall be known as the 'Brody Act,' 
in memory of the unborn son of Brandy Parker, whose death occurred 
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when she was eight and one-half months pregnant." Act No. 2006-419, § 
4. Likewise, the title to the Brody Act provides that it is "[a]n act, [t]o 
amend [Alabama's homicide code], … to define person to include an 
unborn child … [and] to name the bill 'Brody Act' in memory of the 
unborn son of Brandy Parker, whose death occurred when she was eight 
and one-half months pregnant."    
 
Based on the contents of the Brody Act and its title, it seems quite 
clear to me that the death of Brody Parker -- an unborn, in utero child -- 
spurred the Legislature to change the definition of a "person" in the 
criminal-homicide statutes from the common-law meaning to a meaning 
that now allows a defendant to be charged with murder when he or she 
causes the death of a "human being" "in utero." In other words, the 
textual purpose was to expand the definition of "person" to cover victims 
like Brody Parker who died in utero. Our caselaw makes clear that we 
must presume that the terms of a statute mean what they were designed 
to effect, and we are not allowed to enlarge them by construction. See 
Holmes v. Sanders, 729 So. 3d 314, 316 (Ala. 1999) (explaining that this 
Court presumes "'that the legislature did not intend to make any 
alteration in the law beyond what it declares either expressly or by 
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unmistakable implication'" (quoting Beasley v. MacDonald Eng'g Co., 
287 Ala. 189, 197, 249 So. 2d 844, 851 (1971))).49   
 
Second, the plaintiffs' proposed statutory construction of the 
criminal-homicide statutes is contrary to the common law of homicide 
and is not supported by the history of Alabama's criminal-homicide 
statutes. In 1852, the Alabama Legislature passed the first criminal-
homicide statute, which made clear that only a "human being" could be 
the victim of a murder. That statute read, in relevant part, that "every 
homicide perpetrated … to effect the death of any human being" 
constituted murder. § 3080, Ala. Code 1852 (emphasis added).  Although 
every Code section addressing criminal homicide enacted between 1852 
and 1977 used the term "human being" to describe the victim of murder 
and manslaughter, the Legislature never defined the term.   
After the passage of the first homicide statute, this Court held that 
killing an unborn infant in utero did not constitute a murder, citing a 
common-law treatise. For example, in Clarke v. State, 117 Ala. at 8, 23 
 
49See also Cook v. Meyer Bros., 73 Ala. 580, 583 (1883) (noting the 
"presumption … that the language … of the statute import[s] the 
alteration or change it was designed to effect, and [its] operation will not 
be enlarged by construction …."). 
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So. at 674, this Court wrote that "'[a]n infant in its mother's womb, not 
being in rerum natura, is not considered as a person who can be killed, 
within the description of murder ….'" (Quoting 3 Russell on Crimes (6th 
ed.) (emphasis added).)50   
Then, in 1977, the Legislature repealed the previous criminal-
homicide statutes and replaced them with the new criminal-homicide 
statutes. In doing so, the Legislature expressly adopted the common-law 
rule and defined the term "person" as "a human being who had been born 
and was alive at the time of the homicidal act." Former § 13A-6-1(2). That 
definition remained unchanged until the adoption of the Brody Act, at 
which point the Legislature, as explained above, went beyond the 
common-law rule to expressly declare that a victim of a homicide or 
assault (that is, a "human being") included an "unborn child in utero." 
 
50The authority cited in Clarke was a leading criminal-law treatise 
originally written about the common law by an English Justice named 
William Oldnall Russell. Although this Court cited the sixth edition 
(published in 1896), the earlier editions contained the same quote, dating 
back to at least 1826.  See, e.g., William Oldnall Russell, A Treatise on 
Crimes and Indictable Misdemeanors at 424 (2d ed. 1826).  In other 
words, this Court in Clarke correctly stated and followed the content of 
the common law. 
 
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In short, the common law was clear that an unborn infant was "'not 
considered as a person who can be killed.'" Clarke, 117 Ala. at 8, 23 So. 
at 674 (citation omitted). The statutory law did not change this until the 
passage of the Brody Act.  Thus, the common-law definition remains, 
except to the extent that it has been expressly changed by the Brody Act 
to add an "unborn child in utero" to the definition of "person" in 
Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes. To conclude otherwise would be 
inconsistent with our caselaw cited above holding that "'[a]ll statutes are 
construed in reference to the principles of the common law; and it is not 
to be presumed that there is an intention to modify, or to abrogate it, 
further than may be expressed, or than the case may absolutely require.'" 
Grant, ____ So. 3d at ____ (citing and quoting Beale v. Posey, 72 Ala. at 
330).51  
 
51I note briefly that, were we to adopt the plaintiffs' proposed 
construction of the definition of "person" in the criminal-homicide 
statutes, we risk criminalizing the IVF process. Under the Rule of Lenity, 
"'criminal statutes are to be strictly construed in favor of those persons 
sought to be subjected to their operation, i.e., defendants.'" Ex parte 
Bertram, 884 So. 2d 889, 891 (Ala. 2003) (quoting Clements v. State, 370 
So. 2d 723, 725 (Ala. 1979), overruled on other grounds by Beck v. State, 
396 So. 2d 645 (Ala. 1980)). Thus, if there were any reasonable doubts as 
to the statutory construction of the criminal-homicide statutes, this 
Court would apply the Rule of Lenity and strictly construe the definition 
of "person" in favor of those persons sought to be subjected to their 
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For all of these reasons, it seems clear to me that a frozen embryo 
does not fit within the statutory definition of "person" as that term is used 
in Alabama's criminal-homicide statutes and thus cannot be a "minor 
child" under the Wrongful Death Act.   
D. Article I, § 36.06, of the Alabama Constitution of 2022 Has No Impact 
on the Terms in the Wrongful Death Act from 1872 
 
The main opinion also argues that, even if the word "child" in the 
Wrongful Death Act were ambiguous, Article I, § 36.06, of the Alabama 
Constitution of 2022 "operates in this context as a constitutionally 
imposed canon of construction," which "require[s] courts to resolve the 
ambiguity in favor of protecting unborn life." ____ So. 3d at ____. That 
section "acknowledges, declares, and affirms that it is the public policy of 
this state to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all 
manners and measures lawful and appropriate." § 36.06(b) (emphasis 
added).  The Chief Justice also devotes his special concurrence to this 
argument. 
The first problem with this argument is that there is nothing in the 
 
operation -- for instance, in a future case, perhaps fertility-clinic workers. 
This is yet another reason why the plaintiffs' interpretation of the 
criminal-homicide statutes is mistaken. 
 
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text of § 36.06 about resolving ambiguities in statutes (assuming there 
was one here), and the main opinion cites no authority supporting such a 
rule of construction. Even if we were to assume such a rule of 
construction, there is nothing in § 36.06 that tells us how to best protect 
frozen embryos. Specifically, § 36.06 does not indicate (1) whether we 
should protect frozen embryos by updating the words in the Wrongful 
Death Act or (2) whether we should protect frozen embryos via the 
ordinary common-law route (that is, by allowing the claims of negligence 
and wantonness to move forward in these actions).  Why is one option 
more constitutionally mandated than another -- especially when one 
option requires us to discount the original public meaning of the terms in 
the Wrongful Death Act as it was passed by the Legislature in 1872? 
The second problem with this position is timing. The Wrongful 
Death Act was passed in 1872, whereas § 36.06 was passed in 2018. 
Section 36.06 cannot retroactively change the meaning of words passed 
in 1872. The Legislature in 1872 had no idea about a constitutional 
amendment that would be passed 150 years later. If the Legislature 
wanted to change the words in the statute, they should have changed the 
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words in the statute.52   
Although I agree with much of what Chief Justice Parker so 
eloquently states in his special concurrence regarding the "sanctity of 
unborn life," ____ So. 3d at ____ (Parker, C.J., concurring specially), I do 
not agree with his discussion of the "Effect of Constitutional Policy." ____ 
So. 3d at ____ (Parker, C.J., concurring specially). In particular, I believe 
he is mistaken when he asserts that the People of Alabama "explicitly" 
told "all three branches of government what they ought to do" in § 36.06. 
____ So. 3d at ____ (Parker, C.J., concurring specially). The question for 
these appeals is whether Alabama law provides a private cause of action, 
for money damages, for the loss of a frozen embryo.  There is no language 
in this constitutional amendment mentioning private causes of action, or 
money damages, or frozen embryos, or IVF.  Compare Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 
 
52It is of course true, as the main opinion notes, that the 
Constitution is the "'supreme law of the state'" and that all statues 
"'must yield'" to it.  ____ So. 3d at ____ n.7.  However, the main opinion 
fails to explain why the original public meaning of the term "minor child" 
in the Wrongful Death Act violates -- that is, does not "yield" to -- § 36.06.  
Although the main opinion contends that the definition of "child" that it 
applies here is "in keeping with the definition that was established by 
this Court's precedents at the time § 36.06 was adopted," id. (emphasis 
omitted), I fail to see how that could be true given that, as explained in 
detail above, the main opinion is overruling Mack and Stinnett.     
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237 (noting that a right to abortion "is not mentioned anywhere in the 
Constitution").   
The third difficulty with this argument is that it does not rebut any 
of my conclusions discussed above, including those premised on the 
common law, the criminal-homicide statutes, and our prior caselaw.  It is 
for all of these reasons that I find this argument unpersuasive.  
E. The Suggestion that the Common Law Has Been "Collectively 
Repealed" Is Mistaken 
 
 Justice Shaw argues that it is "well settled" that the meaning of 
the term "minor child" "includes an unborn child with no distinction 
between in vitro or in utero." ____ So. 3d at ____ (Shaw, J., concurring 
specially) (emphasis added).  Other than simply referring to the main 
opinion, Justice Shaw cites no legal authority that this lack of any 
distinction is "well settled." Regardless, he is mistaken for all the reasons 
explained above.   
As to his assertion that "the legislature, the constitution, and this 
Court's decisions have collectively repealed the common law's prohibition 
on … seeking a civil remedy for injuries done to the unborn," ____ So. 3d 
at ____ (Shaw, J., concurring specially), Justice Shaw provides no 
analysis on this point either and, instead, simply provides a string 
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citation to (1) the Wrongful Death Act itself, (2) § 36.06(b) (analyzed in 
full earlier), and (3) two cases that support my position (as explained 
earlier). Id. at ____. Regardless, it is well settled that the Legislature -- 
not this Court -- "repeal[s]" statutes. 
Further, the question in these appeals is not whether there is a 
common-law "prohibition on seeking a civil remedy for injuries done to 
the unborn" (as Justice Shaw frames the issue). ____ So. 3d at ____ 
(Shaw, J., concurring specially) (emphasis added). Instead, the question 
is whether the common law can help this Court determine if a frozen 
embryo is within the meaning of the term "minor child" in the Wrongful 
Death Act. 
Justice Shaw appears to contend that the common law has a 
narrower role in providing meaning for words used in Alabama statutes 
than I have explained above. Relying on a special concurrence to a 1974 
plurality opinion from this Court and § 1-3-1, Ala. Code 1975, he contends 
that Alabama statutory law "'does not provide'" that the "'"common law 
of England shall be the rule of decisions in Alabama unless changed by 
the legislature."'" ____ So. 3d at ____ (Shaw, J., concurring specially) 
(quoting Swartz v. United States Steel Corp., 293 Ala. 439, 446, 304 So. 
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2d 881, 887 (1974) (Faulkner, J., concurring specially)) (emphasis added). 
He argues "'[o]n the contrary,'" Alabama law merely provides that the 
common law applies so long as it is "'[n]ot inconsistent with the 
constitution, the laws, and the institutions of Alabama.'"  Id. (some 
emphasis omitted); id. at ____ ("But if it is inconsistent, then it need not 
be first altered or repealed by the legislature.").   
I fail to see a distinction between these standards and what our 
Court has repeatedly (and very recently) broadly stated: "'All statutes 
are construed in reference to the principles of the common law,'" Grant, 
____ So. 3d at ____, and "'statutes [in derogation or modification of the 
common law] are presumed not to alter the common law in any way not 
expressly declared,'" Ex parte Christopher, 145 So. 3d at 65 (citation 
omitted; emphasis added); see also 3A Norman J. Singer and J.D. 
Shambie Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 69:9 (explaining 
that we "presume the legislature retained the common-law meaning").  
Justice Shaw does not cite or distinguish any of this authority.  
More fundamentally, Justice Shaw does not explain how using the 
common-law understanding of the meaning of the term "child" to 
determine whether a frozen embryo is a "minor child" under the Wrongful 
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Death Act is "inconsistent" with "'the constitution, the laws, and the 
institutions of Alabama.'" ____ So. 3d at ____ (Shaw, J., concurring 
specially) (emphasis and citation omitted). As explained thoroughly 
above, any changes that have been made in this area of the law have been 
made incrementally by the Legislature over time and have only gone so 
far as to encompass unborn, in utero children, as reflected in the holding 
and language discussed above in Stinnett, 232 So. 3d at 215 (which 
postdates the two cases cited by Justice Shaw).53   
Thus, unless and until the Legislature updates Alabama law in 
such a way that demonstrates that a "frozen embryo" is a "minor child," 
this Court remains bound by the original public meaning of that term as 
it was understood in 1872 when the Legislature passed the Wrongful 
Death Act. 
F.  Not a Single State Agrees with the Main Opinion   
Not a single state has held that a wrongful-death action (or a 
 
53Like the main opinion, Justice Shaw argues that the definition of 
"person" in the criminal-homicide statutes "does not limit the 
determination whether an in vitro embryo is a 'minor child' for purposes 
of a civil-law action under the Wrongful Death Act." ____ So. 3d at ____ 
(Shaw, J., concurring specially). But, he cites no legal authority other 
than referring to the main opinion, and therefore he is mistaken for all 
the reasons explained above.  
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criminal-homicide action) can be brought for the destruction of a frozen 
embryo. In fact, a number of jurisdictions have rejected such causes of 
action.  See, e.g., Penniman v. University Hosps. Health Sys., Inc., 130 
N.E.3d 333, 339 (Ohio Ct. App. 2019) (holding that patients could not 
bring wrongful-death action against hospital based on destruction of 
frozen embryos because the embryos had no statutory rights); Jeter v. 
Mayo Clinic Arizona, 211 Ariz. 386, 400, 121 P.3d 1256, 1270 (Ct. App. 
2005) (holding that cryopreserved, three-day-old, eight-cell pre-embryo 
was not a "person" for purposes of recovery under wrongful-death 
statute); and Davis v. Davis, 842 S.W.2d 588, 594 (Tenn. 1992) (holding 
that under Tennessee law pre-embryos could not be considered 
"persons").  
It is certainly true that this Court is not bound by the results in 
other states; however, when we are the sole outlier, it should cause us to 
carefully reexamine our conclusions about expanding the reach of a 
statute passed in 1872 and our understanding of the common law.       
G. The Consequences of This Decision and Why That is Relevant 
The main opinion's holding will mean that the creation of frozen 
embryos will end in Alabama.  No rational medical provider would 
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continue to provide services for creating and maintaining frozen embryos 
knowing that they must continue to maintain such frozen embryos 
forever or risk the penalty of a Wrongful Death Act claim for punitive 
damages.54  
There is no doubt that there are many Alabama citizens praying to 
be parents who will no longer have that opportunity.  And, there is no 
doubt that there will be fewer babies born. On the other hand, there are 
powerful moral and policy arguments supporting the notion that ending 
the creation, use, and destruction of frozen embryos is a good thing and 
that IVF technology has the potential for grave misuse.   
I am empathetic to both sides of this debate; however, it is not my 
role to take a position one way or another on this issue. Even so, ending 
the creation of frozen embryos will undoubtedly cause significant 
consequences that will affect the future lives of thousands of Alabama 
citizens for years to come and the babies who will not be born. The solemn 
 
54The main opinion notes, but does not reach, the defendants' 
possible defenses based upon contracts between the IVF provider and the 
plaintiffs. Like the main opinion, I do not reach the possible defenses. 
However, no medical provider would depend upon the contract argument 
to continue creating and maintaining frozen embryos in the future, given 
this significant legal uncertainty and the potential to incur a significant 
punitive damage penalty. 
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significance of these consequences (as well as the need for comprehensive 
regulation) further illustrates why this question is an issue that should 
be addressed by the elected representatives of the people of Alabama in 
the Legislature, not this Court.  I thus urge the Legislature to promptly 
consider these issues to provide certainty to these Alabama parents-to-
be and to the medical professionals who are attempting to provide 
services to them.55   
 
55As to the consequences of a contrary ruling, the main opinion 
discusses, but does not rely upon, a "parade of horribles" that the 
plaintiffs claim might result from a ruling that the term "minor child" in 
the Wrongful Death Act does not include frozen embryos. The plaintiffs 
are mistaken.  These cases have no connection to partial-birth abortions, 
and Alabama's law on partial-birth abortions would not be impacted by 
a ruling in favor of the defendants in these civil wrongful-death cases.  
See § 26-23-3, Ala. Code 1975.  There are also no facts in the record to 
support any such argument, and there is no doubt the Wrongful Death 
Act could reach a partial-birth abortion situation as appropriate. 
   
As to the plaintiffs' second argument (regarding a possible future 
case involving a yet to be invented artificial womb), the answer to this 
futuristic hypothetical is simple. These cases are about the facts today 
and are based upon a statute that has not changed in its relevant terms 
since 1872.  Should the facts change, the Legislature can address future 
technologies and can do so far better than this Court.   
 
The main opinion alleges that I have conceded that the Wrongful 
Death Act would not cover such a hypothetical. It is mistaken.  I have 
made no such concession. We decide cases on the facts that are before us 
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The Chief Justice's special concurrence does not dispute that this 
will lead to fewer newborn babies. However, Chief Justice Parker insists 
that the IVF process may still survive in Alabama in some other form (for 
instance, he suggests: "one embryo at a time") because certain other 
countries have more regulations on their IVF processes. ____ So. 3d at 
____ (Parker, C.J., concurring specially); id. at ___ (stating that he fails 
to see that "IVF will now end"). In fact, he spends several pages 
 
-- not hypotheticals.  The main opinion also alleges that I have failed to 
discuss the "constitutional implications" of this hypothetical. ____ So. 3d 
at ____ n.3. Again, the reason is simple -- it is a hypothetical and we do 
not reach arguments or facts that are not before us, certainly not 
hypotheticals about technology that does not even exist. This Court 
would be in a position to address the alleged "constitutional implications" 
only if the following circumstances existed: (1) such an artificial womb 
existed, (2) it was actually used someday in the future, (3) a developing 
unborn infant was killed in an artificial womb, (4) the Wrongful Death 
Act had not been modified by the Legislature, (5) and we concluded that 
this created an Equal Protection Clause conflict. No such circumstances 
exist in the present appeals; I therefore see no need to address these 
hypothetical scenarios. See, generally, Ex parte Ankrom, 152 So. 3d 397, 
431 (Ala. 2013) (Shaw, J., concurring in part and concurring in the result) 
("Some of the arguments made ... are premised on hypothetical 
situations, different from the facts before us, in which the Code section 
might be either unconstitutional as applied or seemingly unwise in its 
application. It goes without saying that we cannot strike down the 
application of the Code section ... merely because the Code section might 
be unconstitutionally applied in some other context." (footnotes omitted)).   
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describing the regulations that currently exist in other countries and 
suggests that the Alabama Legislature may wish to consider those 
regulations. The Alabama Medical Association strongly disagrees with 
the suggestion that IVF in some other, reduced, form is practical, safe, or 
medically sound and has filed two amicus briefs exhaustively explaining 
these issues.   
It is not the place or time to decide whether the position of the Chief 
Justice or the position of the Alabama Medical Association is correct, 
moral, or ethical.  It is not the place because these are questions for the 
Legislature and not this Court.  And, even if this Court were the correct 
forum, it would not be the time because these appeals are at the motion-
to-dismiss stage and there is no factual record at this point.  Therefore, 
no party has had the opportunity to investigate and respond to the 
assertions by the Chief Justice or the Alabama Medical Association. 
However, as to the Chief Justice's suggestion that the Legislature 
consider these issues immediately (including his suggestion that they 
consider comprehensive regulation), I strongly agree. 
II.  The Plaintiffs' Negligence and Wantonness Claims 
 
Finally, the main opinion does not reach the plaintiffs' negligence 
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and wantonness claims because they are pleaded in the alternative and, 
instead, holds that those claims are now "moot." ____ So. 3d at ____. 
Because I would affirm the dismissal of the plaintiffs' wrongful-death 
claims, I must reach this issue. For the reasons stated below, I would 
reverse the trial court's dismissal of those claims. 
The defendants are making a "catch-22" argument.  Cline v. 
Ashland, Inc., 970 So. 2d 755, 772 n.6 (Ala. 2007) (Harwood, J., 
dissenting) ("'Catch-22: a frustrating situation in which one is trapped 
by contradictory regulations or conditions.' Random House Webster's 
Unabridged Dictionary (2d ed. 2001)."). On the one hand, the defendants 
claim that the frozen embryos are not a "minor child." On the other hand, 
they claim that because the frozen embryos were "lives," no common-law 
claim (such as claims of negligence or wantonness) is available because 
no "damages" are recoverable.    
I am concerned that such a rule might allow the destruction of life 
with no consequence, even for someone who commits an intentionally 
wrongful act.  As explained by the plaintiffs, IVF is used by many 
parents-to-be in dire circumstances (for instance, because of reproductive 
issues caused by cancer, age, or infertility).  Their frozen embryos are 
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undeniably precious.  Thus, this argument has the potential to be both 
unjust and to incentivize bad conduct. See Huskey, 289 Ala. at 54, 265 
So. 2d at 597 (noting that not allowing a recovery "would give protection 
to an alleged tort-feasor"). 
However, I need not reach the question of exactly how our Court 
should handle this situation because it is too early in these cases.  We are 
only at the pleading stage. The plaintiffs argue, under this Court's prior 
decision in Raley v. Citibanc of Alabama/Andalusia, 474 So. 2d 640, 642 
(Ala. 1985), that the trial court's dismissal of their common-law tort 
claims in response to a Rule 12(b)(6), Ala. R. Civ. P., motion was 
improper.  Under Raley, they argue, once a pleader has set out a cause of 
action, the failure of the complaint to allege requisite elements of relief 
(that is, damages) is not usually a ground for a motion to dismiss for 
failure to state cause of action but, rather, must be challenged by a 
motion to strike, by objection to evidence, or by requested charges. 
Accordingly, they contend that the trial court's dismissal of those claims 
is due to be reversed.  
"Alabama is a 'notice pleading' state." Surrency v. Harbison, 489 So. 
2d 1097, 1104 (Ala. 1986) (citing Simpson v. Jones, 460 So. 2d 1282 
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130 
 
(Ala.1984)). Rule 8(a), Ala. R. Civ. P., provides: 
"(a) Claims for Relief. A pleading which sets forth a 
claim for relief, whether an original claim, counterclaim, 
cross-claim, or third-party claim, shall contain (1) a short and 
plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is 
entitled to relief, and (2) a demand for judgment for the relief 
the pleader seeks. Relief in the alternative or of several 
different types may be demanded." 
 
"The primary purpose of notice pleading is to provide defendants 
adequate notice of the claims against them." Cathedral of Faith Baptist 
Church, Inc. v. Moulton, 373 So. 3d 816, 819 (Ala. 2022) (citing Adkison 
v. Thompson, 650 So. 2d 859 (Ala. 1994)). "'[P]leadings are to be liberally 
construed in favor of the pleader.'" Id. (quoting Adkison, 650 So. 2d at 
862). As relevant here, 
"'the dismissal of a complaint is not proper if the pleading 
contains "even a generalized statement of facts which will 
support a claim for relief under [Rule 8, Ala. R. Civ. P.]" 
(Dunson v. Friedlander Realty, 369 So. 2d 792, 796 (Ala. 
1979)), because "[t]he purpose of the Alabama Rules of Civil 
Procedure is to effect justice upon the merits of the claim and 
to renounce the technicality of procedure." Crawford v. 
Crawford, 349 So. 2d 65, 66 (Ala. Civ. App. 1977).'" 
 
Id. (quoting Simpson, 460 So. 2d at 1285). 
In their amended complaints, the plaintiffs alleged that the 
defendants' negligent and wanton conduct in failing to secure their 
respective facilities "led to and/or caused the destruction of the plaintiffs' 
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embryo[s]." As a result of that allegedly negligent and wanton conduct, 
the plaintiffs "demand[ed] judgment for compensatory damages, 
including but not limited to, [the] value of embryonic human beings … 
and for the severe mental anguish …." (meaning that they are seeking 
any valid compensatory damages). (Emphasis added). 
The defendants do not attempt to address this Court's prior decision 
in Raley, supra. They also do not ask that we: (1) revisit the pleading 
standard under Alabama law or (2) reconsider our decision in Raley. They 
also do not point to any caselaw in which we have affirmed a trial court's 
dismissal at the pleading stage based upon an argument that damages 
had not been properly pleaded. Based on Raley, supra, I would reverse 
the trial court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' negligence and wantonness 
claims.