What is the status of a frozen embryo? This is the question at the heart of a dispute between actress Sofia Vergara (pictured), star of the hit TV show, ‘Modern Family’, and her former-fiancée Nick Loeb. Has an embryo the rights and dignity of a human being, or should it be regarded merely as a piece of property, subject to the whims of its owners, to be frozen, thawed or destroyed at will?
Vergara and Loeb created two embryos through IVF with the intention of implanting them in a surrogate mother to bring them to birth. Both embryos turned out to be female and were even given their own names: Isabella and Emma. The embryos were frozen initially, but before a suitable surrogate mother was found, Loeb and Vergara broke up, leaving Isabella and Emma in an icy limbo.
Notwithstanding the break-up, Loeb still wanted to bring the embryos to birth using a surrogate mother and raise them as their father. Ms Vergara, however, refused, preferring instead that the embryos remain frozen indefinitely.
It is the ultimate ‘modern families’ dilemma. Isabella and Emma were brought into being via IVF using Sofia’s egg and Nick’s sperm. The intention was to use a surrogate mother to gestate them. But Sofia and Nick broke up. Sofia decided she is not a mother, even though she is clearly the mother of the two embyros, but Nick, as their father, wants his two children to be born.
Not to be stopped by Sofia’s refusal to let Isabella and Emma be born, Loeb applied to the courts in California to be given custody of the embryos, so he could bring them to birth even without Sofia’s consent. In such cases, the California courts look only at the adults involved and decide between the interests of one person to become a parent, and the interests of the other to not become a parent.
Due to complications, the suit was abandoned, but then an unlikely other avenue opened up. In the State of Louisiana, which has a very different set of laws to California, a suit was filed on behalf of Emma and Isabella themselves, and the trustee of a trust fund set up on their behalf, asking that they be allowed to live and claim the financial inheritance of the trust fund that would be legally theirs.
The reason this is even possible is because of a 1986 Louisiana law that recognises embryos as “juridical persons” and hence subject to rights and representation in a court of law.
If the suit is successful, it would be a stunning turnaround for the embryo-freezing business, and a massive leap forward in the progressive recognition of the dignity and rights of children in embryo.
It would also enable the thawing of little Isabella and Emma and give them a chance of life in a surrogate mother’s womb, followed by a life with their father.
We are constantly being told that the natural ties don’t matter, but the only reason Sofia Vergara has any veto on the fate of her children, is because they are her children. The natural ties matter after all, it seems, even if in this case they are being used to argue against Isabella and Emma being born at all.
