The first two embryos were transferred in May 2009 and McLaughlin gave birth to Sarah and Anna in January. She said Thursday that she has every intention of trying to give birth to the two other embryos donated by a California couple. McLaughlin filed suit Thursday naming the California couple and a San Francisco fertility clinic seeking to prevent them using two frozen embryos. Globe-Democrat
Editor: There's no easy way to summarize this dilemma. You just have to read it yourself. . . . Later, found a better explanation in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Two frozen embryos and two gut-wrenching lawsuits have added up to a national controversy pitting a Pleasanton, CA, family against a suburban St. Louis family over control of what both call their "pre-born children." Edward and Kerry Lambert of Pleasanton filed suit seeking to regain power over two frozen embryos they donated - or, as both religious families put it, gave up for adoption - to Patrick and Jennifer McLaughlin. Jennifer McLaughlin also filed suit in Missouri to maintain legal custody of the embryos.
Paige Cunningham, executive director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Chicago, said there have been legal battles over frozen embryos before, but usually between divorcing spouses. "This is part of the wild, wild West mentality of assisted reproduction," she said. "We just don't have many guidelines in this area, especially when the relationship goes bad." Cunningham said there are probably 500,000 frozen embryos being stored nationwide, the remains of in vitro fertilization procedures. Embryo donation began less than a decade ago and results in just a few hundred births each year, she said. "This is part of a massive social experimentation, and we really don't know what the outcome will be."
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