The Alabama Justice Behind Last Year's Radical IVF Decision Is Running For Office
'With President Trump in the White House, we have a unique opportunity to get conservative wins here in Alabama,' Mitchell said in a Monday statement announcing his run. 'I'm running for Attorney General to stop the lawlessness, restore order, and dismantle Joe Biden's radical left wing policies.'
Mitchell, a Republican, was elected to the state Supreme Court in 2019 and stepped down late last month. His first campaign video describes him as 'a law and order conservative' with 'the guts to protect our constitution.' In the statement announcing his run, Mitchell did not comment on IVF but said he would 'defend the sanctity of life' and 'no matter the cost, I will stand firm to protect the unborn.'
'Known for his strong conservative rulings and tough-on-crime approach to law and order at the Alabama Supreme Court, Mitchell is eager to take a more proactive role in implementing the Trump agenda as the state's top law enforcement official,' the statement reads.
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As state attorney general, Mitchell would be in charge of enforcing state laws around reproductive health care, including the state's near-total abortion ban that has no exceptions for rape or incest. The attorney general can choose to investigate and prosecute pregnant people for miscarriage and stillbirth — situations that have happened in several states since the fall of federal abortion protections. Steve Marshall, the current Alabama attorney general who is term-limited, pledged to prosecute women who used abortion pills or traveled out of state to get care (a federal judge recently ruled against Marshall).
In February 2024, Mitchell and several other conservative justices on the court handed down a sweeping decision that granted embryos the same legal status as children — posing a direct legal threat to physicians and patients using IVF. Mitchell, who authored the brief, equated frozen embryos used in IVF to 'unborn children' under the state's wrongful death statute.
'[T]he Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation,' Mitchell wrote in the decision.
The ruling forced three of the state's largest fertility clinics to pause IVF services. Providers scrambled to find answers, and many patients were forced to delay time-sensitive care with no promise that access would be restored.
Jamie Heard, who lives in Birmingham with her husband, was one of the patients who had to pause care when the ruling came down.
'When that Supreme Court decision shut down IVF care, I think a lot of people don't understand that it didn't just impact clinics, it also shattered families,' Heard told HuffPost. 'To hear that the judge who authored that decision now wants to be attorney general is definitely frightening.'
Mitchell wrote in his May resignation letter to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey that he was stepping down because he wanted to be more vocal about his political beliefs and further President Donald Trump's agenda.
'Serving on the Supreme Court has been the privilege of a lifetime, but my role as a judge limits what I can say and do for our state and country,' Mitchell wrote, according to Alabama Daily News. 'President Trump is moving boldly to restore the United States Constitution — and we must ensure that his agenda takes root not only in Washington, but also in the state. I feel called to play a larger role in that effort in Alabama.'
Dr. Mamie McLean, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist at Alabama Fertility, a clinic in Birmingham, was one of the providers whose clinic temporarily paused IVF services. When the decision came out, McLean was forced to cancel time-sensitive and costly appointments that devastated her patients. She told HuffPost at the time that those conversations with her patients were 'some of the most heartbreaking' she's had in her career.
The state Supreme Court decision centered on a 2020 lawsuit in which three couples sued another Alabama fertility clinic and hospital for the 'wrongful death' of their frozen embryos, using a legal framework for bringing civil charges when a child dies. The couples' frozen embryos reportedly were destroyed by a patient who wandered into the cryogenic storage area where the embryos are kept and dropped them on the floor.
The state Supreme Court's ruling essentially pushed the issue back to the Legislature, which passed a law protecting IVF weeks after the decision.
'We're tired of IVF being a political football,' McLean said. 'Just the suggestion that IVF would not be allowed in Alabama is creating extra worry and stress and that's not good for the men and women of Alabama. … It's important to the voters of our state that IVF is available and high quality.'
The election for Alabama attorney general will be in November 2026. Current Attorney General Marshall is running for U.S. Senate.
Heard has four remaining frozen embryos, which were moved from Alabama to Minnesota because of last year's political climate and due to storage costs. She hopes to one day give her son a sibling.
'We need leaders who protect families and not punish them or threaten their existence under the guise of quote-unquote politics,' she said. 'IVF is not a culture war issue, it's health care — and we won't forget who turned our path to parenthood into a political battlefield.'
After Alabama Court Decision, Panic And Heartbreak In Fertility Clinics
Trump Says He Supports IVF — But He Has Deep Ties To Those Who Oppose It
Alabama AG Is First Republican Pledging To Prosecute Women Taking Abortion Pills
Trump's IVF Executive Order Isn't 'Promises Made, Promises Kept'
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