Thanks. I understand the clinical difference between embryos and babies, yes. But emotionally you feel that connection after everything it takes to just have potentially viable embryos.
It's up to the individuals if they save or discard any unused embryos, if there even are any. It's pretty crazy how few potentially viable embryos you end with compared to how many were fertilized compared to how many eggs were collected.
It's months and months of other less invasive options to even get to IVF. And when you do get to IVF it can be months to years of giving your partner hormone injections and constant blood work to have a pregnancy, much less a pregnancy that makes it to full term and live birth. You can go cycles without any viable embryos. Or it can work on the first try. But in either case, it's already been a huge investment to get there.
So at that point, your emotional attachment is considerably different than for someone whose reproductive experience is simply having sex for a few months or unintentional.
Another factor here is the DNA health of the embryos, the younger you were when the embryos were created the healthier they are. When you're over 40 there are huge increases of various things like Autism and Down Syndrome. If patients had embryos from before that age but have since passed that age, and the embryos were improperly destroyed, you can't effectively remediate that with new cycles of treatment.
I don't agree with the Alabama court's ruling here, but these patients whose embryos were destroyed deserve restitution.