The Alabama ruling was specifically for one case. However, they made a very general ruling which could be used to argue all kinds of things that make no sense. The court even acknowledged this but said something along the lines of "it is not this courts duty to determine other cases". Essentially "The clinic is being sued for wrongful death of a child and they argued this law doesnt apply to frozen embryos. We have decided it does and the case can move forward. We acknowledge this sets a terrible precedent but we don't care. Also here are some Bible quotes because the Supreme Court of Alabama uses the Bible for legal arguments and somehow this isn't religious law"
If it's any slight consolation whatsoever, the Bible quotes being used as evidence was just from the concurring opinion (that came to the same conclusions for other reasons from the majority), written by the chief justice of that court.
I still gave you my upvote anyways. Even if our opinions differ, or maybe it's just that confusing or controversial subject, I thank you for taking time to read my post and comment. 👍
When a high court makes a decision, all the lower courts need to follow it. If a high court says anyone on trial for murder must be tried as an adult, then all the lower courts need to follow that rule. It is incredibly rare for a high court to make such a broad rule though. Usually their rulings are much more precise. Like: on trial for murder, over the age of 15 and shows at least 4 of the following 12 signs of maturity: has a job, has a driver's licence, etc...
This was a case where their ruling was incredibly broad and had no conditions. They literally said "we are adding 'frozen embryo' to the legal definition of 'child'" and just left it at that. This means all courts in Alabama must consider frozen embryos to be children when ruling on cases, which of course has a lot of practical problems.
Already people have pointed out that in vitro fertilization has effectively been banned. All IVF clinics in Alabama are currently closed. Republican law makers cheered this until it was pointed out that IVF clinics create babies. They aren't abortion clinics. Now they're scrambling to re-legalize IVF in Alabama. So yeah, all the old men in Alabama have zero clue about what they're doing. They just like ensuring everything is considered a child because that's what Jesus wants.