Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos have the same legal rights as children in a move that immediately led the state’s largest hospital to pause in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment.
The judgment by nine Republican justices was unanimous in then concluding that “unborn children are children.” This means that the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to “all children, born and unborn, without limitation.” It is standard practice in IVF treatment for multiple embryos to be fertilized, with just one returned to the women’s womb and the others discarded.
As a result, clinics across Alabama put IVF treatments on hold; Gabrielle Goidel, who was just days away from retrieving her embryos after spending $20,000 in the hope of a child, told CNN that she had never “been this stressed in her life.”
A number of Republicans hit out at the ruling, including Donald Trump, by some margin the favorite for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. He offered strong support for IVF treatment in a post on his Truth Social website.
Newsweek has created a brief summary of the nine Alabama Supreme Court justices who made the controversial ruling.
Tom Parker was elected as an associate justice to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2004 and became chief justice in 2018.
The Montgomery native studied at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, before becoming a doctor of law at Vanderbilt University School of Law in Nashville, Tennessee.
Prior to joining the Supreme Court, Parker served as Alabama’s deputy administrative director of courts and also operated as a legal adviser to the chief justice.
Greg Shaw joined the Alabama Supreme Court in 2009 and was reelected in 2014, then again in 2020.
Born in Birmingham, Shaw studied at Auburn University, followed by Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law, after which he was admitted to the Alabama State Bar in 1982.
Shaw is married to Dr. Nicole Shaw, and the couple have two sons. They are both members of the Auburn United Methodist Church.
Alisa Kelli Wise was first elected to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2010 after which she was reelected in 2016 and 2022. Previously, she served as presiding judge of the court of criminal appeals and was the youngest women ever to serve on the court when first elected.
Raised on her family’s farm as a fifth-generation Alabamian, Wise received an undergraduate degree from Auburn University, then became a doctor of law at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law.
Wise and her husband, Arthur Ray, a former Montgomery County District Court Judge, are both members of St. James United Methodist Church.
Tommy Bryan was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2012 and sworn in the following day. In 2018, he was reelected to the court without opposition.
Raised on a family farm in Crenshaw County, Bryan was educated at Troy University. He then studied at Jones School of Law.
Before being elected to the Alabama Supreme Court, Bryan served on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. He lives in Montgomery and attends the city’s First Baptist Church.
William Sellers, a specialist in tax litigation, was appointed to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2017 by Governor Kay Ivey to fill a vacancy.
He received a bachelor degree from Hillsdale College before studying for his juris doctorate at the University of Alabama and receiving a masters of laws in taxation from New York University in 1989. Before entering public service, Sellers practiced law for 28 years.
Sellers has been married to his wife for 35 years, and the couple have three children. They are both members of the Trinity Presbyterian Church.
Brady E. Mendheim, Jr. was appointed to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2018 by Governor Kay Ivey to fill a vacancy, before which he had served as a circuit judge for the 20th Judicial Circuit (Henry and Houston Counties) since 2009.
He was educated at Auburn University and Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. Mendheim, Jr. is married and has three sons. Both he and his wife are members of First Baptist Church of Dothan.
In 2018, Sarah Hicks Stewart was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court, having previously served as a circuit judge in Mobile for 13 years, dealing with both criminal and civil cases.
Before joining the circuit bench in 2006, she spent 14 years in private practice, following her graduation from Vanderbilt Law School in 1992.
Stewart is married with three children and is active with Ashland Place Methodist Church.
James ‘Jay’ Mitchell was first elected to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2018, prior to which he worked as an attorney for Maynard, Cooper & Gale.
Born in Mobile, he graduated from Birmingham-Southern College and the University of Virginia School of Law, and also holds a master of arts from University College in Dublin, Ireland.
A member of Church of the Highlands, Mitchell is married and has four children.
Gregory Cook is the newest member of the Alabama Supreme Court, having been elected to the position in 2022.
He studied at Duke University before joining the United States Air Force where he reached the rank of captain. In 1991, Cook graduated from Harvard Law School, after which he went into private practice for 31 years.
Since 1991, Cook has been a member of the Dawson Memorial Baptist Church and he is married with three children.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Associated Press
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — Dylan Fasoyiro scored 19 points as South Alabama beat Spring Hill 95-61 on Monday night.
Fasoyiro also contributed four steals for the Jaguars (3-2). John Broom scored 14 points and added nine rebounds and four steals. Myles Corey went 5 of 9 from the field to finish with 13 points, while adding three steals.
Walter Peggs Jr. led the way for the Badgers with 30 points. Bo Barber added nine points and four assists.
___
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Southwestern Athletic Conference has issued one-game suspensions to a total of 16 Jackson State and Alabama State players over a postgame altercation and fined both schools.
The league announced on Monday that seven Jackson State players and nine Alabama State players have been suspended for the next game for the incident after Saturday’s game in Montgomery. Both schools were fined $25,000.
Alabama State hosts Prairie View A&M on Saturday, while the Tigers visit Alcorn State.
Dr. Jason Cable, Alabama State’s vice president and athletic director, announced that three of the players would be suspended for the season-ending game against Tuskegee on Thanksgiving Day as well. The suspended players were not named.
Players engaged in shoving after the game and some punches were thrown.
“Acts of unsportsmanlike conduct have zero place in the sports of intercollegiate athletics and within the Southwestern Athletic Conference and we are extremely disappointed to have had consecutive weeks of football competition negatively impacted by these unfortunate occurrences,” SWAC Commissioner Dr. Charles McClelland said.
“We will continue to work with our membership to implement the necessary policies and procedures to deter this type of behavior. We will also continue to enforce a zero-tolerance policy for all acts deemed to be unsportsmanlike and contrary to the high standard of good sportsmanship we expect from all individuals associated with the athletics programs within our league.”
Get alerts on the latest AP Top 25 poll throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll
There isn’t a much better helmet matchup in college football than the Oklahoma Sooners and the Alabama Crimson Tide. Two of the top five programs in the history of college football are now in the same conference, and they’ll meet for just the seventh time ever on Saturday.
Two teams used to winning, and winning a lot are on opposite trajectories right now. OU started 4-1, but they are now just 5-5 with two games left. Bama lost to Vanderbilt and Tennessee on the road earlier this season, but they’ve righted the ship with some key wins over the last few weeks against Missouri and LSU.
The all-time series between the two teams sits at 3-2-1 in favor of the Sooners. They first met in the Orange Bowl at the conclusion of the 1962 season. Alabama shut out Oklahoma that day, en route to a 17-0 victory. At the end of the 1970 season, they faced off in the Bluebonnet Bowl, with the game ending in a 24-24 tie.
There have been three matchups in the 21st century, beginning with a home game for the Sooners in 2002. Oklahoma won 37-27, highlighted by a couple of remarkable runs by Renaldo Works and a fumble return for a touchdown to seal the deal by Eric Bassey.
The next year, the teams met in Tuscaloosa, with OU winning, this time by a score of 20-13. Of course, the 2003 Sooners would end up in the BCS National Championship Game that year.
Eventual Heisman Trophy winner Jason White (who was lost to a season-ending injury in the previous year’s game) hit Brandon Jones for a 47-yard touchdown in the third quarter on the game’s most series of plays. That throw immediately followed a gutsy successful fake punt call by Bob Stoops deep in his own territory.
But perhaps the matchup Sooner fans remember the most fondly happened in the Sugar Bowl after the 2013 season. The two-time defending national champion Crimson Tide were heavy favorites that night in New Orleans, but Oklahoma pulled off a huge 45-31 upset win.
Quarterback Trevor Knight had the finest game of his career, throwing for 348 yards and four touchdowns against the vaunted Tide defense. OU’s defense harassed Bama QB A.J. McCarron all night, with Eric Striker and Geneo Grissom teaming up for a scoop and score touchdown to end a potential game-tying drive. It was one of the best wins of the late-Stoops era in Norman, as the Sooners took down the No. 3 team in the country on a truly magical and unforgettable night.
However, Alabama currently has bragging rights in this series, as the two programs met in the 2018 College Football Playoff Orange Bowl semifinal six years ago. Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray and runner-up Tua Tagovailoa were primed for an offensive shootout in Miami, as Lincoln Riley and Nick Saban met for the first time.
Unfortunately for Oklahoma, this game was essentially over thirteen and a half minutes in, as Alabama rolled to a 21-0 lead, stifling Murray in the process. It was 28-0 Bama before the Sooners finally scored in the second quarter, and the Crimson Tide kept OU at arms length for the rest of the night. Alabama won 45-34, showing off a complete, star-studded team.
Murray and the Oklahoma offense got the Sooners as close as 11 points on multiple occasions, but OU didn’t have a good enough defense to handle Tagovailoa and an excellent Tide offense. Riley was outcoached by Saban, who knew that Oklahoma couldn’t stop his team.
It wasn’t Murray’s finest hour in his final collegiate game before being selected No. 1 overall in the next April’s NFL Draft. Riley would coach the Sooners for three more seasons before bolting to USC. Tagovailoa, Saban and the Crimson Tide were defeated by Clemson in the national championship game, as Brent Venables’ defense put on a clinic against one of the best offenses in college football.
As the Sooners and the Crimson Tide prepare to meet again, Oklahoma is looking to get their fourth win in the series and improve to 4-1 this century. A performance like Knight’s at the quarterback position, coupled with a vintage 2018 Clemson performance from Alley and the defense would go a long way towards getting Oklahoma to bowl eligibility.
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X @AaronGelvin.
Ref needs glasses? Not anymore. Lasik company offers free procedures for referees
Herbert Smith Freehills to merge with US-based law firm Kramer Levin
The next Nintendo Direct is all about Super Nintendo World’s Donkey Kong Country
Column: OpenAI just scored a huge victory in a copyright case … or did it?
Bird flu leaves teen in critical condition after country's first reported case
Column: Molly White's message for journalists going freelance — be ready for the pitfalls
How a researcher hacked ChatGPT's memory to expose a major security flaw
Editorial: Abortion was on ballots across the country in this election. The results are encouraging