Columbus, Ohio –
If a man from Summit County, Ohio, can stop his ex-wife from having a child by using the embryos they conceived through in vitro fertilization before they divorced, the Ohio Supreme Court will make the decision.
Following an opinion from the 9th District Court of Appeals that the ex-wife, who is only identified as “E.B.” in the paperwork, should be allowed to use the frozen embryos to try to conceive, the matter is now being reviewed by Ohio’s highest court. The ex-husband wanted to “avoid the consequences of creating potential biological children” by donating the embryos to an unidentified couple, but the court ruled that E.B.’s wishes were more important.
“It appears [the husband’s] wishes are largely rooted in wanting to both be disentangled from wife and having no knowledge of what ultimately becomes of the frozen embryos, and therefore no responsibility or guilt associated with that decision,” the appeals court’s opinion adds.
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In his appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, the husband—who is identified as “R.N.” in the filing—asserted that the issue pertains to the question of whether “one person can obtain a court order that forces another person to become a parent.”
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According to R.N.’s legal team, the ex-husband’s “right to procreational autonomy” was infringed upon by the 9th District’s decision.
A real threat to those who have undergone or are contemplating in vitro fertilization would emerge “if the 9th District’s view becomes Ohio’s new standard,” the appeal asserts. “The decision’s potential to discourage people from using IVF is enormously harmful.”
The Summit County couple tied the knot in 2016 and began in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 2018; they ended up with fourteen embryos (not implanted but frozen) as a result. During the process, the couple agreed to submit a court decree or settlement agreement to the IVF clinic “to achieve pregnancy in one of us or donation to another couple for that purpose” in the event of a divorce.
A trial court in Summit County ruled that the embryos’ frozen state constituted “marital property” that may be divided after the couple’s 2019 divorce petition. The ex-wife took the matter to the 9th District Court of Appeals after the trial court awarded them seven embryos apiece and then mandated that the remaining fourteen be donated to an in vitro fertilization facility so that another couple may conceive.
Due to E.B.’s treatment for thyroid cancer in late 2019, which further delayed pregnancy, she asserted that the embryos represent her final best chance to have her children. No matter what happens with the embryos—donated to another couple or handed to R.N.’s ex-wife—the 9th District ruled that “there will be children in the world who are biologically related” to him.
After he and his wife consented to have the embryos frozen, “his opportunity to avoid that possibility ended,” according to the decision of the appeals court. “The mystery couple might be across the nation, or they might be his neighbors.”
Nevertheless, the ex-husband pointed out in his brief that the 9th District “failed to balance the equities” by disregarding the lack of proof that E.B. cannot conceive by methods other than embryos. The appeals court “imposed parentage on a person in a pre-pregnancy situation” by disregarding “the need for mutual consent.”
“The decision destabilizes Ohio’s precedent regarding pre-implantation embryos and creates a route for one former spouse to force parentage upon the other former spouse,” claimed R.N.’s counsel. “The decision eliminates the right to privacy of every person, whether married or single, to be unfettered by the state in matters as deeply personal as the choice to procreate or abstain.”
