Judge behind Alabama embryo ruling has ties to Ted Cruz

An Alabama Supreme Court justice responsible for the state’s controversial ruling on frozen embryos served as a delegate for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Tom Parker was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2004. He became the court’s chief justice in 2018. On Feb. 20, he concurred with the court’s ruling that frozen embryos should be afforded the same rights as babies and children. Several Alabama health providers have since halted IVF services for couples trying to conceive. 

“Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God,” Parker wrote in his opinion. He went on to cite the Book of Genesis as a basis for his ruling.

In July 2016, Parker attended the Republican National Convention as a Cruz delegate. Parker later campaigned in Alabama for Donald Trump.

Cruz has not yet commented on the Alabama court’s ruling, but he has supported personhood legislation that could impose similar restrictions. 

In November 2015, when he was running for president, Cruz supported a plan for Congress to criminalize abortion by passing a law that declared a fertilized egg was a person. In January 2016, Cruz told the Catholic television network EWTN that he would back a bill granting personhood rights to zygotes and fetuses.

Cruz signed a pledge in August 2015 from Georgia Right to Life PAC stating he would support a personhood amendment to the U.S. constitution. Georgia Right to Life PAC went on to endorse Cruz’s campaign.

This is not the first time Parker has stirred controversy. The Southern Poverty Law Center found in 2004 that Parker had ties to multiple neo-Confederates and white supremacists. In July 2004, Parker allegedly attended an event honoring Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Cruz is running for reelection in 2024.