Advocates for Youth condemns the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court granting personhood to embryos. The careless decision to grant embryos the legal status of human beings will have potentially vast ramifications and will further threaten the health of people in Alabama and beyond. 

The Alabama ruling comes as extremists restrict access to reproductive health care across the country, passing laws barring abortion or even the ability to seek abortion care across state lines. This is one more attack that exposes the underlying political motivations and extremist agenda of limiting access to reproductive health services in this country, from abortion care, to contraception, and now to IVF services. With the Supreme Court set to hear arguments in two potentially monumental cases tied to medication abortion and pregnancy care, it has never been more important to safeguard young people’s ability to make decisions about their bodies and their reproductive futures. 

Young people are leading the fight to ensure everyone has the right to determine if, when, and how many children they have, and to seek out health care without fear of legal repercussions.