The Alabama supreme court has issued a ruling that is going to reverberate all over the nation, as it endangers a medical practice that allows couples to welcome children into this deeply troubled world.

The court has ruled that embryos are “children,” and that the destruction of embryos that are not implanted into women’s bodies via in vitro fertilization theoretically could be construed as “murder.”

This despicable ruling is a nod by the court to the Christian nationalist movement in Alabama and it well could be — and should be — challenged as violating the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

This one hits many millions of Americans right where they live. Indeed, a member of my family gave birth some years ago to twins after she and her husband decided to seek an IVF procedure. Had the court ruling issued in Alabama had been in force in the state where they live, this couple could not have welcomed their son and daughter into the world.

The First Amendment declares that Congress must not enact any law that establishes a state religion. The Alabama high court has thumbed its nose at the amendment and declared that if Christian nationalists want to declare embryos to be children, then that’s all right. Let ’em have their say, the court has ruled.

This is crap. No, it’s worse than that. It is an evil intrusion into a couple’s most delicate decision-making process.