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Who Owns Pre-Embryos?
An anonymous reader writes: Scientifically and legally, frozen embryos are not the same as a living child. Nevertheless, they can inspire legal battles that resemble custody disputes. This article follows a case between a couple who had been dating for five months when the woman received a cancer diagnosis. Before beginning chemotherapy, she and her boyfriend of five months decided to harvest and set aside some fertilized eggs, just in case. (If the treatment saved her but destroyed her ability to have kids, and the couple stayed together and decided they wanted kids, the pre-embryos would preserve that option.) She survived, but their relationship didn't. With no explicit contract in place, the disposition/custody of the pre-embryos is now hotly contested. "[R]eading over the case, one gets the sense that there's a fundamental lack of language to describe what's at stake. There may be an emerging field of law and legal precedent, but the terms at hand don't adequately capture the nature of the dispute."
Each 'contributor' owns 50%. No decision regarding the subject pre-embryo may be be made without a majority.
Case closed.
The pre-embryo owns itself.
I guess I'm confused as to why they chose to froze her fertilized eggs instead of the eggs alone. Is there a scientific reason for choosing to freeze a fertilized egg over a non-fertilized egg? Since she was only with her boyfriend for five months and she was the one going through chemo, they should have had no reason to think his sperm would need to be preserved. I won't judge them though as I can imagine a cancer diagnosis can impact judgement, but I'm curious if one option was better than the other.
...the moment he fertilized her ovum. He is the biological father, he is half responsible for these children if they are born.
He cannot force her to give them up any more than he could force her to abort the fetus or give the child up for adoption.
At this point I ask, "Dude what the FUCK were you thinking?" Could have saved her eggs without fertilizing them.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Instead of the law trying to pick a winner on this one just make the law that the disposition of the embryos must be contracted before the service can be provided. Then have a very steep fine for any clinic that doesn't obtain and properly store that contract. Then mandate that there is a maintained copy of a "suggested" set of common contracts that are continually updated to reflect any edge cases that end up in the courts such as one of the partners become mentally incompetent etc.
This way some morality police lawmakers can't step in and turn this in to an abortion/anti-abortion debate where the actual consumer of these services then lose.
I read the referenced article. Bottom line: the woman wants the child/children, the man does not them to exist at all, apparently to avoid an "image" problem of being an un-involved father. At least as I understand what was written. The woman apparently has said that she will not be demanding any support or anything more from the father. In that case, I would say that she should be allowed to have the child(ren). This conforms to _my_ morality which considers the life of a child (or potential child) to be more important than the "image" of a "deadbeat dad" that the father has expressed. Especially since the latter is not true. In this case, he's just a sperm donor as far as I'm concerned. Too bad they didn't consider all the possibilities when they drew up the contract. I realize that others will disagree, but I hope we can remain civil in tone despite our disagreement. I will add that if both agreed to destroy the "pre-embryos", I would not have a problem with that. To me it is like in a criminal case: If you can't decide, then vote "not guilty" (I like the English "not proven" wording better). In this case, of "want the child (to be)" versus "don't want the child to exist at all", I vote for the "want the child". I'm not sure what I would think if it were the reverse. I wouldn't force the woman to have a child she didn't want just because the guy did. That case would be even more difficult. Surrogate mother?
Can her ex opt for Sperm Donor status? She gets kids. He doesn't get landed with child support.
intellectual property. Two artists record song but don't release it. They split, who owns the tune?
This is easy. Based on current legal standards, to force the woman to become a mother against her will is rape. To force the man to become a father is merely a call for more stringent child support enforcement.
Not to mention the woman has the absolute right to destroy the embryos if she so chooses.
Summary judgement for the woman unless you want to upend hundreds of years of law.
The woman may have her reproductive capability destroyed and so may only have this option to reproduce. However, the guy may not want to be a daddy with this woman.
Personally, I'd try to make some sort of deal to settle the issue, like if she raises any of these embryos over his objection, he bears no responsibility, ever, for the progeny. But if you RTFA, that's already the case, and he still objects to being a father to kids he won't be involved with.
It seems (from TFA) that every state is coming up with its own solution, like following the contract, or "balance of interests".
And what happens if some couple no longer has means to pay for embryo storage, but they assert a right to force the embryo-maintainer to keep their embryo's anyway? Just how much is reproduction a right?
--PM
They both decided on creating this pre-child. They should have had an agreement on what to do. Our court system sees this all the time with post-born children. Where's a King Solomon when we need him? /you say anonymous coward like it's a bad thing?
And already fertilizing some eggs just in case? Anyone surprised that relationship didn't survive?
From early reports, mostly from Apple enthusiasts, it appears that Apple may have another hit product with the Apple Watch. What has me concerned is the potential of the Apple Watch Edition, the gold luxury version that will be aimed at the international market.
If the Watch establishes itself as a winner, many observers expect a run-rate of one million Edition gold watches a month (with some low estimates of only 100,000 a month).
The million-a-month potential is fascinating. At that rate, this device would add $120 billion to Apple's revenues. God knows how high the stock would move. Investors should know that the Apple Watch requires an iPhone for all its features to work properly, so factor in more handset sales.
More interesting, though, is the possibility that a million per month would result in Apple buying 30 percent of all the gold produced in the world, according to Mining.com, based on a pre-rollout estimate of 62.2 grams of gold in each watch.
Apple Watches actually contain 69 grams of 18-karat gold, which equals 51.75 grams of pure gold. At a million per month, that's a little over 57 tons of gold per month, or 684 tons of gold a year! That's a lot of gold-buying for a tech company, and puts a serious dent in newly mined gold.
While 100,000 a month seems more likely to the majority of observers-that's only 5.7 tons of gold a month, or 68.4 tons a year-it's not outside the realm of possibility that the elites of the world will be on board with the watch and push it higher. After all, pricey Rolex watches, many of which go for $30k or more, sell between 400,000 to 600,000 per year. That is the real competition for the Apple Watch Edition. Rolex sales have been going and going for decades.
The counter trend, of course, is the falling popularity of the wrist watch since the advent of the mobile phone. I haven't worn a watch in 15 years except as occasional decoration, and then I go with an original minimalist Movado museum watch.
If I was to wear a watch today it might be my gold Fairchild LED watch I got at a garage sale for $5, for irony's sake. Anyone who has read these columns long enough already knows my answer to the question, "Are you going to buy an Apple Watch?"
While I may find the current rollout of numerous electronic smart-watches silly and essentially useless, I can assure you that, at least in California, I am in the minority.
Listen to tech podcasts; pretty much everyone talking tech already has one or two of these watches, usually a Pebble or Bam-Bam and one of the many Android watches. They all expect to be buying an Apple Watch, though nobody seems to be going for the Edition gold watch because they cannot afford it.
In the U.S., the Apple Watch Edition will probably be sold to anyone owning a Tesla, Silicon Valley types, and venture capitalists who will think it is hip. Or to people that believe $10,000 is not a lot to spend on a badge of honor among a certain executive class. Most of these people will never figure how to use all the features.
This whole watch phenomenon will shake out by Christmas. If Apple is very successful, the consequences will be extreme. Not much will change if it is a flop.
We wear short shorts!
Who Owns Pre-Embryos?
From a scientist: What the fuck is a pre-embryo.
the disposition/custody of the pre-embryos is now hotly contested.
No, it isnt. you're just substituting a made-up term for a real word and hoping it lends greater importance to the click bait. Eggs, Sperm, and Embryos are all components of human and mammalian reproduction. pre-embryos are some neoconservative evangelical dry-hump term used to justify strange ballot measures like outlawing masturbation or criminalizing miscarriage. in the interest of science lets clear this up. follow along at home with sed/grep/awk in TFA.
If the biomatter belongs to a specific person, then it is their biomatter. If you spit on a judge, your biomatter has incriminated you in the act of contempt. If you rape, then your vaginal secretion/sperm is accounted for by the prosecution during your trial as evidence and considered during sentencing. If you froze eggs, they're yours. At best the whole complaint here is a mysoginists tantrum.
Good people go to bed earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
So, who does the "biomatter" belong to when the "biomatter" is a fertilized egg?
It's not her DNA, it's not his DNA. And the fertilized egg is not a human in the eyes of the law...
So, who does the "biomatter" belong to? And why?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I honestly don't understand why men take the risk of fathering children anymore. All it does is create a financial, legal, and personal stranglehold around your neck. The mother of your children can, at any time, and for any reason or no reason, discard you yet keep the lion's share of your paycheck forever.
Marriage and parenthood are just not worth the risk.
He is the biological father, he is half responsible for these children if they are born.
The problem is that there are NO children yet. Only cells with 2 half nuclei inside (= pre-embryos)
The problems are very real, but concerns children which do not exist yet, but due to biology and the existence of those cells could very well come into existence.
He cannot force her to give them up any more than he could force her to abort the fetus
The notion is different.
- the "abortion" case is about the mother. It's her body, she decides what she's doing, nobody can force her to undergo a procedure that might has consequences on her health / ability to proceates further.
- here the cells are in a test tube somewhere in a fidgde. mother's phyiscal body isn't in any way concern by the discarding of the cells. it's only the mother's role as a potiential parent (if the children come into existence).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
one could argue that a embryo is "more mother" because a woman only has limited amounts of eggs whilst a man has "unlimited" amount of sperm.
a 80 year old man never had a menopause.
furthermore a woman has to carry and feed a embryo over 9 months.
both are sub-classes of the laws of physics : )
If she keeps those eggs on ice for ages and then randomly decides to defrost them and germinate a few in her magic garden... then the guy is responsible child support.
No really.
Child support laws basically assume that birth control and the last 100 years of medical science didn't happen. The concept of them is that if she got pregnant in any fashion by your porn star energy drink... then you've apparently consented to be a daddy.
You go on a one night stand with a girl at a bar... use a condom... she says she's on the pill... she calls you six months 9 months later to tell you that you're a father... Congrats, you're playing child support.
Here some lackwit is going to say I'm not being a chivalrous gentleman. That's because chivalry is dead. Look, responsibilities and rights go hand in hand. When men were responsible for everything they had all the rights. And women didn't have any options. If they got knocked up they couldn't really do anything about it. And the culture of the time put great significance on being "chaste". If she already had some other dude's baby then it was a lot harder for her to get a husband which was a serious problem.
Today none of that applies but the child support laws don't care.
There was a dude that was literally drugged, woke up tied to a bed with a girl on top of him, he ejaculated in her because men really don't have any control over that if you're bouncing on top of them, he told the police about it immediately, the police did nothing, she got pregnant, gave birth, filed for child support, and the courts made him pay for her rape baby.
Yep.
So, the issue with those eggs set aside is child support. If she signs something to the effect that he's not on the hook for any of the child support... I'd see no reason for him to care one way or the other.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
pre-embryos are some neoconservative evangelical dry-hump term
I'm sorry, but "pre-embryo" is a leftist mass-media term coined to further dehumanize embryos. They're human. They may not be legal persons (yet), but they are human.
Who Owns Pre-Embryos?
From a scientist: What the fuck is a pre-embryo.
Wikipedia is your friend.
Basically:
- Bunch of cells, still disorganised (apparently, you wait until for the primitive streak to call it proper "embryo". I didn't remember that from my lectures)
- They float around, they haven't implanted into an uterus yet. (That I vaguely remember from my medical studies).
(Well, of course, they were fertilized *in vitro*. It would be hard to find an uterus to implant onto at the bottom of a test tube).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Each person gets 1/2 the embryos to do with as they want and they give the other 1/2 up for "adoption" to the other person. If in the future either decides to implant them the other party has no say or financial obligations to the other.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
The problem is that there are NO children yet. Only cells with 2 half nuclei inside (= pre-embryos)
Small correction: apparently you still call it "pre-embryo" even later than that, as long as they aren't implanted into an uterus yet (and they haven't formed a primitive streak. I didn't remember at all this latter part).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Actually it is a scientific term, it is common synonym for proembryo. But thanks for sharing your hate and ignorance.
Yes, she can and she will. At least, you produced the sperm while still her husband and would-be father of her children.
If a sperm-donor can be hit for child-support, you would have not a chance. And not just in Kansas, Illinois too only makes exceptions for sperm donated "through medical channels involving a doctor".
It may work the other way too — a donor may get parental rights after an artificial insemination.
Presumably, with the rights comes a child support obligation as well — the two better be inseparable.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Speaking of things turning ugly in FOSS space...
Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?
Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.
A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).
The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).
With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:
* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?
and
* What are the consequences of not doing this
Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"
http://whatwillweuse.com/fodde...
Thus sayeth the Noodly Appendage.
In cases that have the potential to go sideways where two or more parties are involved the hospital/doctor/professional should be required to have the outcome spelled out, codified, and notarized. And if and when one party changes their mind...tell them tough! This was a monumental decision and once it was made it was set. Please leave your "but what if" one offs at the door because they are just that...rare occurrences. They can be addressed when they occur.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
No, no, the article states
"Scientifically frozen embryos are not the same as a living child."
So it must be so. Science agrees.
Who Owns Pre-Embryos?
From a scientist: What the fuck is a pre-embryo.
Which scientist? I was a researcher for seven years, mind...
the disposition/custody of the pre-embryos is now hotly contested.
If the biomatter belongs to a specific person, then it is their biomatter. If you spit on a judge, your biomatter has incriminated you in the act of contempt. If you rape, then your vaginal secretion/sperm is accounted for by the prosecution during your trial as evidence and considered during sentencing. If you froze eggs, they're yours. At best the whole complaint here is a mysoginists tantrum.
Even leaving aside the fact that the biomatter in question belongs equally to both parties, you're still wrong and here's why: biomatter not attached to your body is not legally considered to be your part of your body. It's considered medical waste or similar and as such it is handled by the legal system as any other property; IOW you may be found responsible for it but you're certainly not going to be the default owner of it. You'll be accountable but with none of the privileges of ownership.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
...is if she wins, she can be impregnated, and have kids against the guys wishes... ...and the guy is on the hook for child support...
If this were concerning abortion, the argument is that it is just a clump of cells.
For this even pre-embryos have a presumed future personhood status.
Gotta love the mental gymnastics.
Things like clones and identical twins aside, the scientific way to attribute a certain glob of biomatter to a specific person with a high certainty would be DNA analysis.
The problem here is that this scientific way completely fails for fertilized eggs, as their DNA is clearly different from either biological parent.
> What the fuck is a pre-embryo?
Dinner and movie.
They mean frozen fertilized eggs. The eggs have to be fertilized with the male's sperm before freezing. I'm not an expert but apparently that's how it is, they can't be frozen and then fertilized later.
So, there are some fertilized eggs that would grow into human beings if implanted back in a women. Half the material is from the female, half from the male. In the UK both people's consent is required just to keep them on ice, let alone use them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Seriously go find another woman who is more healthy and make it happen with her. Why carry on the past with someone faulted, sorry not her fault, but you know what I mean. And think of the children, what chance do they have of same or other faults?
Why didn't she bank unfertilized eggs? Why pre-fertilize them?
GAH!!! If you're going to talk about scientific things, please learn the correct terminology which would be ovum in this case. Life is tough enough without people constantly trying to invent words to make themselves sound important.
Nor is it a new story, or a new anything.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
We're just a couple of frozen embryos.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I've just been through this process and signed the appropriate contracts (in Norway).
When freezing embryos here, both parents sign an agreement that the embryos will be frozen for a maximum of five years, and that the explicit consent of both persons needs to be given before they are removed from the freezer, either for destruction or implantation. After five years they are destroyed anyway.
Problem solved.
me. Glad to have cleared that up for y'all.
What the fuck is a pre-embryo.
Pre-embryo is a flicker in the eyes, the inviting smile, the day at the private beach, the Las Vegas trip gone peach, all combined with a healthy egg, shaken but not stirred.
Seems simple enough.
If they split the cost, then half the embryos belong to her, half belong to him.
If the laws say that the genetic daddy has to pay child support, he is just going to have to deal with it.
what is a frozen embryo scientifically? other then a frozen human in the embryonic stage of development?
would an adult in suspended animation also not be considered human for some reason?
It seems a bad idea to confuse law and science. Legally women are property in some countries, There was a time when legally people with black skin were not 'persons', legally speaking. The law is based off of human precepts and philosophies, but science is base off of hard physical realities.
A frozen , zygote, remains a frozen human zygote, with exactly the same potential to be a human as everyone reading this post once had, all of us having passed through the same stage of growth. Is a zygote, scientifically a child? I guess that would depend on your definition ( and therefore what test you use ) for making that determination. However the common definition from google would say it is a child, in so much as the definition is testable.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%20child&safe=active
It should also be noted that weather or not it is immoral , or should be illegal to kill human children , is not a question that can be answered by science, aka not a testable proposition.
Posting anonymously due to personal information in this comment, but I will disclose that I am male.
So far all of these comments tend towards the idea that the man wants to be released from any obligations he has towards the pre-embryos, and the woman decides later to carry them forward.
What about the opposite of that? What if the man wants custody and wants to hire a surrogate to carry those pre-embryos through to full-fledged crying baby stage? Does the egg-donor similarly owe child support, or can she sue for custody?
I will tell you, as one who recently filed a batch of pre-embryos in a freezing facility, and who is hoping literally today for the good news that the process has worked, even from the perspective of having a very happy and fulfilling marriage, that the existence of those pre-embryos in the freezer weighs pretty heavily on my mind. I wouldn't have gotten into the whole fertility treatment process (and trust me, it truly sucks) if I did not desperately want children of my own. If the she in my equation decided to give up and walk out, it is not at all obvious to me how I would deal with that or what I would want.
In our case, we already signed the relevant paperwork referred to by many helpful comment-posters above.
As a secondary thought, I cannot imagine that any reproductive medicine establishment would choose to be in the middle of such a legal battle. It is definitely in the interest of such facilities to demand signed paperwork before participating in the creation of those pre-embryos. (Ours had such a policy.)
"What the fuck is a pre-embryo."
In the article, they stated that a "pre-embryo" is "an embryo that has not yet been implanted".
Something wrong with that? I think it suffices for the purposes of a magazine article. As long as they define their terms, I find it highly unlikely that they are using linguistic subterfuge to further some weird political agenda.
"If the biomatter belongs to a specific person, then it is their biomatter."
OK, so according to you, the sperm belong to the guy and the eggs to the woman, right?
Well, given the fact that they have no way of removing the man's biomatter from the pre-embryo without destroying the woman's biomatter, can you see why the issue is "hotly contested"?
The original intention of this whole per-embryo freezing was in case she lost her ability to have children on her own after that. She survived the cancer treatment, but what her reproductive functions? Seems to me the easy answer is that if she still has that function, she does not have to have these specific frozen embryos to reproduce. She can conceive a child with someone else. They should just be destroyed and nobody will get them then.
I claim ownership of all my DNA, Identity, and all other biological information unique to me including but not limited to gene sequence and chemical composition and/or arrangement.
Any claims contrary to this are not withstanding.
pre-embryos are some neoconservative evangelical dry-hump term used to justify strange ballot measures
Because as we know, the New Yorker is a hotbed of neoconservative evangelical activity.
You must be a pretty crappy scientist if this is how you reason things.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Wo else?
Were there an even number? Then randomly distribute them among the mother and father. If an odd number, leave one frozen somewhere for eternity or until both parties agree on what to do with it.
The State does. Everything should belong to the State. We would live in a better and less complicated world if everybody accepted that we only live to serve the State.
Huh?
Pre-embryos? Since when do we have such expression?
Pre-babies, too?
Some people have a way with words. It's like people talking about death sentence: "it's killing, not murder" and the commandment in its original language was not about killing.
Yeah, right.
It will be interesting when _you_ are declared a pre-person...
Pregnancy easily can outlast the relationship that caused it. In all jurisdictions and cultures I am aware of, it is a woman's decision to keep the baby or not (if someone is allowed to decide at all).
The pre-embryos are abominations. Just destroy them. Why do you people insist on making things so complicated?
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
You want kids? Adopt. The world is full of kids who need families. You want to reproduce your own little genetic sample? Get over yourself. Your genes are well enough represented in the human genetic pool. In fact, if your judgement is that bad that you'd sink like 20 grand a shot on the iffy chance of an IVF being successful, that's a good argument that your particular genetic combo should NOT be reproduced.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
"Scientifically and legally, frozen embryos are not the same as a living child." Well, duh. They're younger, and don't breathe. Now explain how they're not individual humans, with no rights. And if it's age, then these rights can be taken away from anyone at the wrong age.