The Alabama Chief Justice Who Invoked God in Deciding Embryo Case

[In It to Win It]

The Alabama Chief Justice Who Invoked God in Deciding Embryo Case

ATLANTA — In an Alabama Supreme Court decision that has rattled reproductive medicine across the country, a majority of the justices said the law was clear that frozen embryos should be considered children: “Unborn children are ‘children.’”

But the court’s chief justice, Tom Parker, drew on more than the Constitution and legal precedent to explain his determination.

“Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God,” he wrote in a concurring opinion that invoked the Book of Genesis and the prophet Jeremiah and quoted at length from the writings of 16th- and 17th-century theologians.

“Even before birth,” he added, “all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”

Just as the case, which centers on wrongful-death claims for frozen embryos that were destroyed in a mishap at a fertility clinic, has reverberated beyond Alabama, so has Parker’s opinion.

His theological digressions showed why he has long been revered by conservative legal groups and anti-abortion activists, and also why he has inspired apprehension among critics who regard him as guided more by religious doctrine than the law.

In a post on social media, Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, described the opinion as a “beautiful defense of life and the Alabama Constitution.” But critics viewed it as dangerous and deviating from the U.S. Constitution. “Welcome to the theocracy,” wrote a columnist for The Washington Post.

[Irish_Dem]

1. What century do this people live in?

[limbicnuminousity]

3. The 19th.

As such, Reconstruction is not yet over and it seems an appropriate time to finish the job.

[Irish_Dem]

18. I think they are still in the civil war stage.

[Roland99]

32. 19th B.C.E

[Hugin]

9. What millennium do these people live in?

[Walleye]

2. Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed?

The word wrongfully is doing a lot of work here. Isn’t Alabama the state that just tortured a guy to death by suffocating him with nitrogen?

[MOMFUDSKI]

6. Bingo!

They suck

[CrispyQ]

7. Well, that guy wasn't innocent, you see.

Not sure what excuse they use for letting kids get gunned down in school, though.

[Hugin]

12. Those are post-uterine children...

So they need to pull themselves up by their bootie straps.

[Walleye]

15. Bootie straps, I love it

[CrispyQ]

17. Post-uterine children...I'm literally laughing out loud.

[Walleye]

14. He was judged guilty by man, not by God

[Mz Pip]

4. Where did this idiot come from?

Was he elected or appointed? If appointed, then by whom?

[limbicnuminousity]

13. Elected

The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. The court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for staggered six-year terms. The Supreme Court is housed in the Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building in downtown Montgomery, Alabama.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_Alabama

They did it to themselves.

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. 3 former Republican Alabama Supreme Court justices supported his opponent in his election

He’s more Roy Moore than Roy Moore. Parker is an activist judge who made his name campaigning against activist judges. Judges who disagree with his view, as Parker put it, should be considered terrorists like al Qaeda.

Which is the real joke because he’s running against Judge Bob Vance, the most boring and judicious and cautious and serious sort of judge you can find, a judge backed by six former supreme court justices – three Democrats and three Republicans. They wrote a letter saying Vance has the “judicial temperament and the legal acumen required to decide cases on their merit. He knows that politics has no place in legal decisions.”

Meaning Parker lacks those things. So…
...
Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Woodall – a Republican – and former Chief Justice Drayton Nabors – a Republican – donated to Vance’s campaign.

Woodall in the past made it clear that his problem with Parker is not ideology or any of the things the guy’s criticized nationally for. He’s just bad at his job.

https://www.al.com/news/2018/10/if-you-vote-for-tom-parker-alabama-the-jokes-on-you.html

[Hugin]

5. How to say you have never made it past Genesis...

Without saying it.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

8. But thoughts and prayers is all that's needed

For actual children blown to pieces in classrooms.

For children hungry and neglected, languishing in foster care.

For children brutalized and trafficked.

Christofascist trash.

[elleng]

10. *dangerous and deviating from the U.S. Constitution.

“Welcome to the theocracy,”'

[Boomerproud]

35. The FRC thoroughly welcomes theocracy.

That's their whole point of being.

[Ninga]

11. They are NOT embryos. The frozen items are Zygots. They do not become embryos until they

are implanted in an uterus.

[Hekate]

23. These fanatics are on the one hand stupid, & on the other hand they have rat-like cunning...

Over the past 50 years I have watched them change the meanings of words, and have watched as news media has accepted this. The fanatics won by sheer persistence.

All the best contraceptives got redefined by the fanatics as being abortifacients. Dubya Bush gave them an incalculable gift by insisting on the so-called “conscience clause” to enable anyone anywhere the right to refuse to fill a prescription they thought was immoral.

Finally, in the aftermath of Dobbs, it became very clear that procedures that saved the life of my own mother in the post-WW II era were being redefined as “abortions. “ Today, In half the states in this benighted nation she would be allowed to bleed out or go septic from her miscarriages.

Language, as Joseph Goebbels and Newt Gingrich both understood, is the key to control.

[dlk]

16. Apparently, for justice Parker, violent death from gun violence doesn't count

He even looks like a wingnut zealot. Republicans have forgotten, our country was founded on freedom from religion.

[Irish_Dem]

19. Americans being mass murdered by military assault weapons is fine with the GOP.

In fact the GOP seems to relish it.

[dlk]

20. They are seriously twisted in their religious zealotry

This is a unique pathology that deserves a name.

[Irish_Dem]

21. It is almost like a religious psychosis.

It is so irrational and nonsensical. They sound delusional.

[dlk]

22. It's definitely something abnormal

Maybe it’s neurological.

[Irish_Dem]

26. I think it is a mixed bag of psychiatric diagnoses.

There are people who I think are psychotic.
And having actual psychotic delusions.

Then there are people who are sociopaths, criminal types who know it is all baloney
but use the religious nonsense as a control and punishment tool. They enjoy torturing women
and putting them in their place.

Then there are narcissists who love the attention. So they spout all kinds of ridiculous stuff
to get that attention.

[dlk]

34. Yes, there's no one-size-fits-all in describing Republican pathology

It’s pathological, whatever the diagnosis.

[Irish_Dem]

36. Oh yes it is psychopathology.

I think there are some unifying themes no matter the particular diagnosis.

Control, power, cruelty.

[sop]

27. 15-week bans, no AR-15 bans.

[Irish_Dem]

28. They can control our sex lives, but cannot control the mass murders.

[LiberalFighter]

24. If there was a god he would be dead.

[A HERETIC I AM]

25. Want to know how to tell if an embryo is a child?

Freeze a child solid then try and bring it back to life.

Hint; you can do that to an embryo.

One of these things is not like the other.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

29. Seven Mountain Mandate- this idiot is pushing an extreme religious nut case theory

The “Seven Mountain Mandate,” which calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life. The Seven Mountains Mandate is extreme RWNJ/religious bigot type theory that is scary. This idiot judge is a true RWNJ/QANON supporter.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/alabama-supreme-court-chief-justice-spreads-christian-nationalist-rhetoric

During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.

Enlow is a pro-Trump “prophet” and leading proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a “quasi-biblical blueprint for theocracy” that asserts that Christians must impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the “seven mountains” of cultural influence in U.S. life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment.

Enlow has also repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, sometimes even connecting it to the Seven Mountain Mandate. Per Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimed that world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices” and that “there is presently no real democracy on the planet” because over 90 percent of world leaders are involved in pedophilia and are being blackmailed.

On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, with the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying them, imperiling in vitro fertilization treatment in the state. In a concurring opinion, Parker quoted the Bible, suggested that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life,” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”.....

Parker’s ties to extreme right-wing Christian and “prophetic” media figures extends beyond the interview with Enlow.

Last year, Christian nationalist media figure Sean Feucht said Parker had invited him into the court’s chambers for a worship session. Parker also joined a prayer call in March 2023 with supposed prophets and apostles, and he prayed that “there will be a growing hunger in the judges of Alabama, and around the nation for more of God. And that they will be receptive to his moves toward restoration of the judges, so that they can play their forecast role in revival in this nation.”

[Paladin]

30. You like invoking God, "Chief Justice" Parker?

Back at ya: This issue, and your court's opinion, are GIFTS FROM GOD...to Democrats.

Thanks for the horrendous fuck-up. Pax vobiscum.

[Qutzupalotl]

31. If God's wrath is invoked, then we don't have to do anything, right?

God will punish the evildoers. Or doesn't he have faith?

[VMA131Marine]

33. Remember, this is the state that kept electing Roy Moore

as it’s chief justice despite a predilection for young girls that got him banned from a local mall or, at least, made him not welcome there.

[Whiskeytide]

37. Actually, the repubs here kept electing him ...

… even though he was a religious zealot who kept sneaking 6,000 lb replicas of the 10 Commandments into court houses.

The laying of hands upon minor girls was what finally got Romantic Roy kicked to the curb in favor of (D) Doug Jones in the special election for Jeff Sessions’ seat when ol’ Jeff destroyed his political career by letting Тяцмp touch him.

So this is perfectly consistent with repub political history in Alabama.

[SamKnause]

38. Fuck Tom Parker.

Fuck his imaginary friend.

Fuck passing laws to appease invisible deities.

[moondust]

39. Unborn children are children?

Ask the "chief justice" what kind of wrath his holy God should incur for stillbirths.

[dickthegrouch]

40. Why isn't he naked?

Not that I have any desire to see him that way. But original sin was discovered by the clothing of nakedness. Shouldn’t we all be naked to be as pure and devout as possible?

[Cha]

41. The Blowback BACKFIRE Has Already Begun!

This Parker is right out of central cassting what a Fake Christian judge should look like Pushing his god o Everyone Else.