Frozen things cannot be killed

Yet another news item that makes me do my Linda Blair impression: Alison Miller and Todd Parrish have been granted permission to pursue a wrongful death suit against the Center for Human Reproduction in Chicago, which accidentally discarded frozen embryos belonging to the couple:

In an opinion issued Friday, Cook County Judge Jeffrey Lawrence said "a pre-embryo is a 'human being' ... whether or not it is implanted in its mother's womb."

He said the couple is as entitled to seek compensation as any parents whose child has been killed.

Here's what I want to know: there were nine embryos in question, does that mean that the couple would be guilty of criminal negligence had they not implanted all nine, one after the other, in Alison's womb? Could Alison and Todd have declared them as dependents on their tax forms? For fuck's sake. I'm not nearly as reasonable and generous about this as Shakespeare's Sister, from whence comes the link. I think it's patently ridiculous that we are at a point in our history where we confer human status on a small bunch of frozen cells all the while massacring thousands in other countries. I know...it's an obvious point. Forgive me; I nonetheless need to utter it now and then.

(In other news of how your reproductive rights are receding into the sunset, Prof. B. has the story of why you should not patronize La Quinta.)