Less than two years after the Supreme Court declared that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion, 14 states — Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi — have enacted total or near-total bans. Georgia and South Carolina forbid the practice six weeks after conception. These states subject individuals who aid or abet an abortion to criminal prosecution.

Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court declared that anyone who destroys an “unborn child” located outside of a biological uterus, including frozen embryos, “at the time they are killed,” is criminally liable under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor statue. “Each human being, from the moment of conception,” wrote Chief Justice Tom Parker, “is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect his likeness.”

Despite initiatives around the country to exempt in vitro fertilization from grants of legal personhood, the Alabama Supreme Court decision is not that much of an outlier.........

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