Who Gets Custody of Embryos?
The recent innovations in reproductive technology have helped many couples and individuals achieve pregnancies that may have been impossible just a few years ago. As with many innovations, however, rapid scientific advances have brought with them new ethical and legal dilemmas. Twenty years ago, judges and attorneys who were accustomed to dealing with the often challenging issues of child custody may not have guessed that they would soon be faced with potentially even tougher issues involving custody of frozen embryos. Take the case of a Tacoma, Washington couple who had two embryos formed with donor eggs and the husband’s sperm “left over” after a successful birth using a surrogate. The couple had the eggs frozen with the intention that they, too, would someday be implanted in the uterus of a surrogate mother. The couple later divorced, and the judge awarded custody of the frozen embryos to the husband. The husband wanted to place any children born from the embryos for adoption in a t
