[matthewdgreen]

It's very strange because I read the "Wrongful Death of a Minor" statute and it says nothing about born vs. unborn children, unless it was recently amended. If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying that the Court previously interpreted that "black letter statute" wording to include unborn children (even if the actual wording of the statute does not) and in this case they're merely taking the "relatively uncontroversial" step of expanding their novel interpretation of the statute so that it also includes IVF embryos. Even though the statute discusses neither.

The dissenting justice seems to confirm my impression: "Justice Greg Cook, who filed the only full dissent to the majority opinion, said the 1872 law did not define "minor child" and was being stretched from the original intent to cover frozen embryos."

So the court has now made two rulings that vastly expand the scope of the "minor child" that is mentioned in the "black letter statute". This is obviously fraught with ethical implications and implications for future cases. But since the court asserted that this is simply applying "statute" and there are "no major ethical implications", I guess we just have to accept their assertion? That seems foolish.