The US state of Alabama’s Supreme Court said the negligent destruction of frozen embryos is covered by the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act which allows parents to recover punitive damages in the event of a child’s death.

The case was brought by several couples whose embryos were destroyed when a patient dropped them on the floor in a fertility clinic’s cold-storage section.

The law already covered in utero embryos and the Court had to decide whether the statute excluded “extrauterine children” (e.g., IVF embryos) from its protection.

The court said that nothing in the act’s language stops it from being applied to frozen embryos. The ruling added that it isn’t the court’s role to make such an exception, especially considering a 2018 constitutional amendment that made it state policy to “recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children.”

The decision has prompted a local university hospital to suspend in vitro fertilization treatments while it assesses the ruling’s implications.