Last week the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling that will transform infertility care across that state, potentially setting the stage for a ruling that an embryo outside the womb holds constitutional rights.

In LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C., the Alabama Supreme Court expanded upon its precedent that unborn children are “children” for purposes of Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act (a statute that allows parents of a deceased child to recover punitive damages for their child’s death) to hold that the death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery falls within the act.