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On Oct. 14, the Oregon Court of Appeals issued its decision to deny a man's legal appeal to keep alive the six frozen IVF (in vitro fertilization) embryos that he and his ex-wife had preserved during their marriage. The ex-wife wanted to have the embryos destroyed, and the Court's decision supports that action.
No Right to "Impose a Genetic Parental Relationship"
The Court's decision was unanimous, ruling that the ex-husband, Dr. Darrell Angle, had no right to "impose a genetic parental relationship" on his ex-wife, Dr. Laura Dahl. The couple had married in 2000, and in 2004 they tried to conceive a child through IVF treatment at Oregon Health & Science University. The IVF treatment did not produce a child for them, but six embryos were created and frozen for preservation.
At the time, Angle and Dahl signed an agreement naming Dahl the default decision-maker regarding the embryos in the event that the couple separated.
An Issue of Private Property
In a lower-court case, Angle argued that the embryos were alive and should not be destroyed. However, the Court of Appeals ruled that the embryo issue is one of private property, and that the embryos should be destroyed by thawing as requested by Dahl, who indicated that she did not want to be considered the mother of the children in the event they were carried to term.
The Court cited appellate court decisions in states such as Tennessee, where the court ruled that a "husband's interest in not procreating outweighed the wife's interest in donating the eggs to another couple." In light of the fact that more than 100,000 embryos are cryogenically stored across the U.S., the legal cases surrounding embryos stored by divorcing couples arise again and again.
(Source: Catholic News Agency)
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