John Oliver captures the absurdity of Alabama's IVF court ruling

The recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) are legally equivalent to humans has caused utter chaos as health care providers try to understand the implications of this new legal status quo. It is potentially huge and disturbing, as John Oliver pointed out at the core of the absurdity Last week tonight when he joked: “If you freeze an embryo, that's fine. If you freeze a person, you have some explaining to do.”

The decision, issued last week, is already affecting fertility clinics across the state. The University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System announced it was halting IVF treatments to “assess whether our patients and physicians may face criminal prosecution or punitive damages for meeting the standard of care for IVF treatments.”

The case was brought against a fertility clinic in Mobile after a patient there was able to access a freezer full of embryos. The patient took some and accidentally dropped and destroyed them. In turn, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the fetuses could be considered “ectopic children,” and the clinic could then be sued for wrongful death.

Oliver called the initial accident “truly horrific,” but added: “Walking into a lab and dumping frozen embryos is not murder. If anything, it sounds like the script for a rather tasteless sequel to Mr. Bean, but that's it!'

Along with highlighting the serious uncertainties this decision has caused for health care providers and fertility clinics, he also highlighted the dissonant effect the decision has had on conservative politicians who have long courted the hard-line anti-abortion advocates who promote the idea. “fetal personality”. Oliver showed a clip of Alabama Senator Tommy Tamperville who seemed to understand the problems with these positions in real time.

After being asked for the first time about the decision, Tuberville stated that he was “in favor of it, we need to have more children, we need to have the opportunity to do this”. After being told, moments later, that the ruling meant that people trying to have more children through IVF could no longer do so, the senator replied: “Well, that's for another discussion.”

Oliver replied, “Well, guess what, Tommy, since your political philosophy seems to start and end with 'We need more kids,' you'll be thrilled to know that thanks to a judge in Alabama, there are now freezers full of them!” Go play with all those frozen kids, Senator! Or, maybe it wasn't what you had in mind when you thought of kids — which is exactly the fucking point here!”