Cryopreserved Embryos Case Study

Mr. Szafranski is appealing a decision made by the Circuit Court of Cook County in which the court sided with ex-girlfriend Karla Dunston concerning a dispute over the disposition of cryopreserved pre-embryos that were created when Mr. Szafranki donated his sperm and Ms. Dunston donated her ova in light of Ms. Dunston having been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and having been informed that her chemotherapy treatments would likely render her infertile. Mr. Szafranski is asking the Appellate Court to enjoin Ms. Dunston from using those pre-embryos.

The topic of abortion is heavily debated. One of the major controversies surrounding abortion is whether or not the embryo is a human life and able to receive the same rights as any other human. Is the embryo mentally developed enough to be considered as a human life? It is medically proven that after conception, the human brain takes many months to develop, so the “personhood” of a fetus cannot begin until about the seventh month.

      Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a 'right      to life.' A piece of protoplasm has no rights--and no life in the human      sense of the term. An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a      potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until      it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the      unborn) body? (Ayn Rand, http://www.abortionisprolife.com/)

Procedural Facts: In May 2010, a couple of months after Plaintiff Jacob Szafranski donated his sperm and have eight eggs fertilized for freezing, Plaintiff Jacob Szafranski sent Defendant Karla Dunston a text message ending the relationship. In August 2010, two months after the relationship ended, Plaintiff Jacob Szafranski filed a pro se complaint in the circuit court of Cook County. Plaintiff Jacob Szafranski sought to keep Defendant Karla Dunston from using the frozen pre-embryos so he was not forced to father a child against his will. Defendant Karla Dunston ended up counterclaiming and asking the court to grant her sole custody and control over the pre-embryos so she could someday use the pre-embryos to bear her children. Defendant Karla Dunston sited breach of contract and asked the court for relief under promissory estoppel. The circuit court ended up siding with Defendant Karla Dunston by granting her full custody and control over the use of the frozen pre-embryos.

An embryo should have the same rights as any other human, being, if a baby is unwanted, go for adoption. “There are thousands of loving families waiting to adopt children”(Source B). Why abort, when you can go for adoption? There are many families out there that will desire to adopt unwanted babies. “Approximately 5 million Americans alive today are adoptees, 2-4 percent of all families have adopted, and 2.5 percent of all children under 18 are adopted”(Source B). Adoption has become more common in the United States, and it is a great solution for those mother who have unwanted pregnancies to not abort their child but to give them for

Darnovsky suggests that although many genetic scientists support germline engineering because it can potentially resist transfer of hereditary mutations, these scientists fail to mention that preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) does the same effect in allowing a technician to screen embryos for traces of diseases and simply deliver any non-infected embryos to the mother’s body. In conjunction, Darnovsky endorses the alternative of prenatal screening with the option of abortion to avoid the use of in vitro fertilization. Cohan, however, observes that it would dubious for the Court to restrict a woman’s reproductive rights to use germline technology while people are already using reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, and surrogacy. He asserts that the right to use these reproductive technologies is protected by law, and implies that it would be hypocritical for the government to restrict use of germline technology while these other reproductive technologies are still in effect.

This report describes how ethics involving embryos has been ongoing for 25 years but has significantly increased with the stem cell controversy. Another issue brought up by this report is whether or not federal funds should be spent on an issue that is so ethically

The debate about the legality of abortion involves debating the legal status of the fetus. If the fetus is a person, anti-choice activists argue, then abortion is murder and should be illegal. Even if the fetus is a person, though, abortion may have justified as necessary to women’s body self-govern but that wouldn’t mean that abortion is automatically ethical. Perhaps the state can’t force women to carry pregnancies to term, but it could argue that it is the most ethical choice.

The laws on the books and consequent court choices identifying with them have, after some time, been fixing to two inquiries: whether ladies have the privilege to have premature births, and when does an unborn youngster have a case to privileges of its own. The point of interest choice Roe v. Wade from 1973 goes far in characterizing who gets rights and when. As indicated by the choice composed by Justice Blackmun, the privilege to premature birth is guarded by the fourteenth Amendment. The content of the revision particularly utilizes "conceived" in the criteria to qualify somebody for the security rights ensured in the correction. At the point when the ethical issue of when another life starts is disregarded, it refutes any rights that a gathering of cells and/or baby could have. (Blackmun) However, Roe versus Wade additionally puts the confinement that, at one point (typically in the third trimester of pregnancy), the unborn youngster achieves a state of feasibility which allows it the privilege not to be prematurely ended, aside from cases of assault or interbreeding or if having the child is perilous to the mother. (Blackmun) The rights and cutoff points set out in Roe versus Wade speak to what the vast majority in America think about fetus removal, paying little respect to what they think about it ethically. (Gallup) Roe v. Wade isn't the main huge Supreme Court case

Since Roe v Wade, there have been major advancements in the maternal-fetal world of medicine. Advanced technology and science have shown us that there is “life” to a fetus before the last trimester, leading to many regulations and laws to prohibit abortion for the life the fetus. Discussed in this paper are the policies, court cases, and executive decisions affecting legal abortion in the US and the ethical implications that debate them.

Mike McKee’s article, "Weighing the Right to Own an Embryo," made the front page of the Recorder, a daily legal newspaper published in San Francisco reporting on legal advice and interests of attorneys and legal practitioners. How did he make his article such a success? What made it front page worthy in the eyes of this legal audience? McKee’s article, "Weighing the Right to Own an Embryo," appeals to a legal audience by presenting an unbiased framework and evidence.

Sandra Day O’Connor, wrote in the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey the following, “the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” This social justice allows women to experience a citizenship stature and the ability to practice their legal right. This may be true, however, this begs the question – is the baby a part of the woman’s body or is it its own entity? The placenta and the umbilical cord are the organs by which a fetus or a baby is connected to his/her mother. This however, is more for separation from the fetus and the mother. Biologically, a fetus has its own circulatory system and their blood must not intermingle. Nonetheless, a fetus needs nutritional resources, which are obtained through the umbilical cord. This is to show that a fetus is not a tumor, growing within a cavity of a woman and does not have barriers, rather, the two (the mother and the fetus) biologically take extreme measures to set barriers for the safety of both the fetus and the mother. This is to conclude the possibility of the woman’s body and a fetus being two distinct organisms. Amongst all these things, it is crucial to still maintain the perspective of women’s rights and their right to choose. Nonetheless, the fact and truth about the life of an individual ought not to be

An issue that has caused great legal debate is the freezing of eggs and embryos. Freezing allows savings eggs or embryos for later implantation; not all are used. However, frozen embryos and eggs generally have a lower success rate. The question arises of what happens to them if the couple decides to divorce, or one or both of them dies? These situations have been decided through court determinations. In 1987, the status of frozen embryos was brought before the Victorian courts with the case of Mr and Mrs Rios, who had died in a plane crash. The embryos from Mr and Mrs Rios had been frozen in 1981. There were many ethical and moral concerns regarding this case. Should the embryos remain frozen indefinitely, be donated, or kept for research? The Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act

   In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a new being was artificially created using the parts of others. That topic thus examines the ethics of "playing God" and, though written in 1818, it is still a relevant issue today. Genetic engineering and cryogenic freezing are two current technologies related to the theme in the novel of science transcending the limits of what humans can and should do.

A woman has a right to her own body is an idea more and more women are realizing, but that idea ignores the unborn child's right to his or her own body. Never, in modern times, has the state granted to one citizen the right to have another killed in order to solve their personal, social, or economic problems. The embryo is its own being that should have it's own rights to protect it. The zygote is a unique genetic being.