A divorce was pending. The wife had been rendered sterile by cancer treatments. Implantation of preembryos, created from her egg and her husband's sperm, appeared to be her only chance to have a child. Before the marital problems the couple, through in vitro fertilization (IVF), created embryos which were frozen. In the divorce they argued about ownership of the embryos.
Three types of analyses have been applied in these situations: contractual, balancing and contemporaneous mutual consent. The court in the below Pennsylvania case applied the balancing approach because neither party signed the portion of the consent form related to the disposition of the preembryos in the event of divorce or death. (Reber v. Reiss, Pa. Super. Ct., No. 1351 EDA 2011 (J.A. 01044/12, 4/11/12).
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