The Alabama Supreme Court’s recent ruling that embryos created using in-vitro-fertilization (IVF) are legally equivalent to people has caused absolute chaos as healthcare providers try to figure out the implications of this new legal status quo. It’s potentially massive and unsettling, as John Oliver pointed out the core absurdity on Last Week Tonight when he joked: “If you freeze an embryo, it’s fine. If you freeze a person, you have some explaining to do.”

The ruling, handed down last week, is already impacting fertility clinics across the state. The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s health system announced it was pausing IVF treatments so it could “evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following 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 filled with embryos. The patient picked some up and accidentally dropped them and destroyed them. In turn, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos could be considered “extrauterine children,” and subsequently, the clinic could be sued for wrongful death. 

Oliver called the initial accident “genuinely horrible” but added: “Somebody walking into a lab and dropping frozen embryos just isn’t murder. If anything, it sounds like the script for a pretty tasteless Mr. Bean sequel, but that is it!”

Along with highlighting the grave uncertainties this ruling has caused for healthcare providers and fertility clinics, he also stressed the discombobulating effect the ruling has had on conservative politicians who’ve long courted hardline anti-abortion advocates pushing the idea of “fetal personhood.” Oliver showed a clip of Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville seeming to comprehend the problems with these positions in real time.

Trending

After first being asked about the ruling, Tuberville stated he was “all for it, we need to have more kids, we need to have the opportunity to do that.” After being told, moments later, that the ruling meant people trying to have more kids via IVF are no longer able to do that, the senator replied, “Well, that’s for another conversation.”

Oliver snapped back: “Well, guess what, Tommy, since your political philosophy seems to begin and end with, ‘We need more kids,’ you’ll be thrilled to know that thanks to a judge in Alabama, there’s now freezers full of them! Go play with all those frosty kids, Senator! Or, maybe that’s not what you had in mind when you think of children — which is exactly the fucking point here!”