Ben Carpenter, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, spoke with The New York Times about the growing legal debate surrounding frozen embryos created through IVF. Carpenter explained that courts across the country still lack consistent legal standards for determining custody of embryos after couples separate, leaving judges to weigh competing questions involving parenthood, consent and reproductive rights.
From the article:
But the legal question of who should have custody of frozen embryos is far more complicated — and still largely unsettled in American law. Only about one-third of states have considered the issue in an appeals court, where precedent is set, according to Ben Carpenter, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law who analyzed rulings on embryo disputes from 129 judges. That means courts in the vast majority of states have no established legal framework to use to make these decisions.
Absent any precedent, individual judges are left to decide what outcome is most fair. One judge might care most about what each partner plans to do with the embryos; another may value each partner’s relative ability to have a child in other ways. While lower courts tend to side with the person seeking to use the embryos — typically the woman — appellate courts have almost always sided with the person who wants to donate or discard them, according to Carpenter’s analysis.
