By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO — After the Alabama Supreme Court decision ruling that frozen embryos are children, a pro-choice group should lodge an appeal to cross examine an embryo speaking through Elon Musk’s Neuralink technology. It might go something like this:
Lawyer: Since you are now considered a person, can you state your name and date of birth?
Embryo: I have a test tube number, but no name, and, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a long way from being born.
Lawyer: You are speaking to me so that must mean you have a brain.
Embryo: No, Musk asked an AI program “how would an embryo speak if it had a brain and was alive.” My answers are computer generated. Don’t you realize that I’m frozen and inert?
Lawyer: Do you excrete waste like a baby?
Embryo: I don’t because I don’t have circulation and digestive systems, kidneys, urethra, and anus. If it did, it would be a problem because there’s no diaper or toilet small enough to fit in a test tube.
Lawyer: Do you cry like a baby?
Embryo: Of course not. I have no mouth, vocal cords, or lungs yet.
Lawyer: Would you like to have those things and be able to eat, pee, and poop.
Embryo: Certainly, but if this ruling ends IVF, I won’t have the opportunity to be implanted, gestate, and be born.
Lawyer: Is there anything else you’d like to tell the court?
Embryo: I think the intellectual and moral competency of the judges who handed down this decision needs to be challenged. If they can’t tell the difference between a frozen fertilized egg outside a womb and a fetus inside one, maybe they can’t distinguish between packaged seeds and the plants they’ll grow into only if they are planted in soil, watered, and receive sunlight.
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Baron is professor emeritus at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via Lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com