Another Landmark Decision on Reproductive Rights
After the Alabama Supreme court’s decision that frozen embryos are children, two of the state’s fertility clinics have decided to stop providing vitro fertilization treatments. The state’s decision to consider frozen embryos as children derived from couples receiving treatments who allegedly saw a patient enter the clinic through an unlocked door, managing to withdraw several embryos and dropping them. The couples whose eggs were ruined have attempted to bring a wrongful death suit against the clinic where these events occurred; however it was later revealed that a lower court threw away the cases. Nonetheless, the Alabama Supreme Court overruled the lower court decision, thus deeming frozen embryos as children.
Dr. Mamie McLean, an infertility specialist in Birmingham, told Good Morning America that this decision will alter fertility treatments throughout the foreseeable future, allowing for medical professionals and patients to be tried as criminals for undergoing the process of vitro fertilization in hopes to have children.
Despite this decision, fertility specialists within Alabama have announced they will continue to fight for reproductive rights for patients and families in the state, although some are pausing treatments.
News on Russia and the Front Lines
President Joe Biden met with Yulia Navalnaya and Dasha, the wife and daughter of the late Alexei Navalny on February 22. Yulia Navalnaya believes that Putin was involved in her husband’s death, and she is determined to continue his work to oppose the Russian government. In response to the events surrounding Navalny’s death, the Russian government, and the war with Ukraine, the White House plans to announce “major new sanctions” against Russia. In the meantime, Navalny’s family is facing difficulties in getting Navalny’s body from the government, and his mother also claims that the government is attempting to blackmail her into having a private funeral.
On the war front, Russia as of recently has began to make offensives into Ukraine as the war hits its two year mark, taking the city of Avdiivka overwhelming the Ukrainian positions. An onslaught of Russian soldiers are reportedly entering cities across most of the Ukrainian front, according to Ukrainian commanders. Russia has been able to take the initiative like this as Ukraine’s weapons supply is diminishing as aid is slowing down, with Ukraine warning that their situation could become more dire. Russia however is not entirely in the clear as Biden is warning of “crushing” new sanctions against Russia after the death of anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny, which can heavily impact the Russian war effort.
Navalny is not the only Russian prisoner making headlines. Ksenia Khavana is a ballet dancer with a dual United States and Russian Citizenship who went to Russia to visit her family and ended up arrested for treason in January of 2024. Khavana’s boyfriend, Chris Van Heerden, spoke to CBS News in an attempt to bring her back.
Khavana was initially arrested after making a donation of $51 to a Ukrainian charity. Also, Russia’s Federal Security Service found out she took “public actions” regarding the subject back home in the U.S. Khavana faces up to 20 years in prison, and is fighting alone, as Van Heerden reports that no Russian lawyer “wants to touch the case.”
U.S. Touch the Moon for the First Time in Over 50 Years
Odysseus, a spacecraft made by the private company Intuitive Machines, became the first U.S. built spacecraft in more than 50 years to land on the moon. The lander touched down on the moon’s lunar surface around 6:23 p.m. ET on February 22, 2024. The Nova-C lander is the first U.S. built spacecraft of any form to land on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission of 1972 and is the first commercial trip to the moon.
According to reports, Odysseus launched into space on February 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The lander spent nearly six days reaching the moon. Odysseus is carrying commercial goods and NASA tools, and will spend a week collecting data before losing power.
Intuitive Machines was one of many companies approved by NASA under Commercial Lunar Payload Services contracts. NASA plans to use these companies to carry out more commercial space missions.
On their own front, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency are planning to send four astronauts to fly around the moon in the upcoming Artemis II mission next year. If the mission is successful, Artemis III will be a moon landing scheduled for 2026.
