In llinois IVF-blastocysts are not human beings

The Illinois Appellate Court in Chicago has just held that the state's wrongful death act does not apply to blastocysts created by in vitro fertilization before they are implanted in a woman's uterus. The decision is online at the court's website.

The decision employs the fairly rare, and often derided, technique of consulting the "legislative history" of a statute to construe its meaning. The technique is often derided because that "history" usually consists only of some remarks by the statute's sponsor (or sponsors) trying to soft-pedal something about the proposed bill that is controversial (as is the case in the legislative history quoted in this decision; the remarks deal with the interplay of the statutory amendment with abortion procedures, not IVF procedures). That technique, critics say, gives insight only into the thoughts of one person, rarely does that insight help construe the meaning of the words used, and never does it reveal the collective intent of the body by whose authority the bill became law.

I did some quick web research to see when the first IVF baby was born. It turns out that it was a year or two before the relevant statute was being debated (1979), so the Illinois General Assembly could have expressly included pre-implantation IVF blastocysts in its coverage. But the truth is, of course, that nobody ever thought of the problem before it came up in this case.

I read the decision quickly, but don't remember seeing citations to authorities outside of Illinois dealing with similar problems. Commenters, are there any that you know of?