Alabama to execute men for murder by masturbation?

The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court declared that fertilized frozen embryos enjoy all the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as people who walk, talk, and rock around the clock.

This came in a ruling that couples who had lost frozen embryos in an accident at a storage facility had the right to sue the facility for wrongful death.

He did not say so, but the logical extension of Chief Justice Tom Parker’s ruling is that men will face the death penalty for “spilling the seed” (to use the biblical phrase; see Genesis 38) after masturbating. It remains to be seen whether boys who were minors at the time they were caught masturbating would also face execution or only life in prison.

Justice Parker, who according to reports has been linked to several Christian Nationalist causes as well as Qanon, ruled in the case that frozen embryos are people and have the same rights as live babies. This appears to be an extension of the theory that unborn fetuses are people and that abortion is therefore equivalent to murder.

According to the New York Times, Justice Parker’s legal writings on past cases lay much of the groundwork for the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs. Wade. He often cites the Bible in his opinions.

According to the website FindLaw.com, Alabama permits execution by lethal injection or electrocution. Earlier this year, Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution by…