Judge rules woman can’t keep embryos
Los Angeles Times (TNS)
SAN FRANCISCO
A San Francisco judge ruled Wednesday that frozen embryos a woman wants to use over her ex-husband’s objections must be “thawed and discarded.”
Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo, in an 83-page decision, upheld a consent form the couple signed shortly after their marriage in 2010. The couple agreed on the form provided by the fertility clinic that the embryos should be destroyed if they divorced.
“It is a disturbing consequence of modern biological technology that the fate of nascent human life, which the embryos in this case represent, must be determined in a court by reference to cold legal principles,” Massullo wrote.
The ruling was a strong rebuke to Dr. Mimi C. Lee, 46, an anesthesiologist and musician, who argued the embryos were her only chance to have a child of her own because of her age. The judge questioned Lee’s motives and credibility and said she had not even proved she was infertile.
Stephen Findley, Lee’s former husband, wanted the embryos destroyed. He said their divorce had been acrimonious, and he did not want to be tied to Lee for the rest of his life with a child.
In the first such ruling in California, Massullo decided the consent agreement was a binding contract.
“IVF clinics and individuals who participate in the IVF process must have some certainty about dispositional choices before embryos are created,” the judge wrote.
Lee discovered she had breast cancer just before her marriage and decided with Findley to create and store the embryos to preserve her fertility. The couple separated in 2013 and divorced earlier this year.
She testified during the trial in July that she considered the fertility clinic agreement a mere consent form, akin to a medical directive, and thought she could later change her mind.
But the court did not believe her and described her as evasive and contradictory on the witness stand.
“Given Lee’s education, profession and intelligence, the court finds that her testimony that she did not intend to enter into a binding agreement was not credible,” Massullo wrote.