![\"635566666904570846-TheGassman-Family-EmbryoAdopt\"](\"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/635566666904570846-TheGassman-Family-EmbryoAdopt.jpg\")
<\/a>As of late, in USA Today, Karen Weintraub<\/a> reports that Rebecca and Chris Henderson of Hampton, Va., have a total of 11 frozen embryos stored after their twins were born via IFV and then another baby, by natural conception, about five years later.<\/p>\nThe couple Weintraub writes, \u201c\u2026they weren\u2019t comfortable donating their embryos for scientific research or destroying them; they believe life begins at conception. So the Hendersons legally signed them over to Dan and Kelli Gassman of Salem, Ore. \u2014 another Christian couple a lot like them who still struggled with fertility problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weintraub goes on to say that embryo donation has been slowly growing in recent years. She interviewed Sean Tipton of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine who states, \u201cMost who choose that option do so for religious or ideological reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am delighted that these frozen embryos are being used for conception. However, what I find legally problematic is the fact that they are being \u201cadopted\u201d as there is no need to adopt these embryos since there is no birth mother giving up her legal rights to a child. And, there is no child involved in this scenario.<\/p>\n
In this article, I fully agree with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine which conveys the following in this article:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the term embryo adoption is favored by those who believe life begins at conception, the medical group has issued an ethics policy stating that the procedure should be called donation not adoption, because embryos are not children.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Pacific Standard Magazine, Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, J.D., wrote a piece titled, \u201cThe Frozen Children: The Rise\u2014and Complications\u2014of \u00a0Embryo Adoption in the U.S.\u201d Buckwalter-Poza clearly highlights that embryo adoption is becoming more popular because it\u2019s proving to be more effective than traditional IVF. Its odds are stacked in someone\u2019s favor in terms of traditional adoption, too.<\/p>\n
However, Buckwalter-Poza reports, \u201cBut our legislature is still struggling with serious legal issues surrounding the practice.\u201d She adds, \u201cThe promise of embryoadoption is limited by the questions that remain surrounding legal status. Obvious as it seems that embryos deserve some standing as potential lives, states generally treat them as personal property.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this article, Buckwalter-Poza goes on to say that no superseding embryo-related law exists, so a child who develops from an adopted embryo legally belongs to her birth parents. In Buckwalter-Poza\u2019s summation, she believes American lawmakers\u2019 remain hesitant to place a definition on an embryo\u2019s legal status.\u00a0 She suggests this may come from internal conflict of laws which currently exist but the real aversion may be to, \u201cplace legal limits on fertility medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
However it goes about it, Buckwalter-Poza stated, a legislature is the only body that can resolve the questions implicated in embryo adoption.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil legislators establish embryos\u2019 legal standing\u2014or lack thereof\u2014judges and parents alike are operating in a legal vacuum,\u201d she writes.\u00a0 Buckwalter-Poza continued, \u201cFew judges are up to the task of carving out a new status for embryos as both property and potential people, but fewer still will get the opportunity to do so, as long as parents know embryo adoption is subject to legal uncertainty. The full promise of embryo adoption cannot be realized until the law catches up to technology to protect the rights of parents in this brave new variation on adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Buckwalter-Poza brings up valid points, my legal stance is the same: there is no legal reason to adopt embryos. They should be donated, which is far less expensive and a much more simple and streamlined process.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The term, \u201cembryo adoptio [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,9,10,1],"tags":[55,78,79,85,117,125,190],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embryo-donation","category-fertility-2","category-infertility-2","category-ivf","category-uncategorized","tag-dan-and-kelli-gassman","tag-embryo-donation-2","tag-embryos","tag-fertility","tag-infertility","tag-ivf","tag-rebecca-and-chris-henderson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}