The battle over two frozen embryos was decided by the Missouri Court of Appeals last week. In a contentious dispute involving divorced couple Jalesia McQueen, 44, and Justin Gadberry, 34, McQueen wanted to be able to use the two frozen embryos the couple created, whereas, Gadberry either wanted the embryos given to an infertile couple, donated to research or destroyed.<\/p>\n
Gadberry remained adamant that he did not want to be forced into fatherhood with McQueen, something his attorney argued would be a direct violation of his client\u2019s constitutional rights.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Missouri Court of Appeals sided with Gadberry and upheld the lower court\u2019s earlier ruling: the frozen embryos were marital property of a special character.<\/p>\n
According to the ruling, the frozen embryos will remain within the couple\u2019s joint custody and will continue to be stored until the couple arrives at an agreement regarding their use. Judge Robert M. Clayton III wrote that the award of joint custody, \u201c\u2026subjects neither party to any unwarranted governmental intrusion but leaves the intimate decision of whether to potentially have more children to the parties alone.\u201d Judge Clayton continued, \u201cThe right of personal privacy extends to intimate activities and decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception and family relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement following the recent appellate ruling, Tim Schlesinger, Gadberry\u2019s attorney, announced, \u201cI think today\u2019s ruling is a victory for individuals against unjustified government intrusion. We don\u2019t want the government telling when to have children or whether to have children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Joel Currier, noted that the decision of the Missouri Court of Appeals confirmed that,\u201c\u2026McQueen\u2019s attempt to apply state law defining life as beginning at conception is at odds with U.S. Supreme Court decisions protecting Gadberry\u2019s rights to privacy, to be free from government interference and not to procreate.\u201d<\/p>\n
McQueen has already voiced her plans to move forward with an appeal of the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my offspring. It\u2019s part of me, and what right do the judges or the government have to tell me I cannot have them?\u201d It appears as though she is facing an uphill battle.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The battle over two froze [\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":[4,9,1],"tags":[76,77,79,155],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assisted-reproduction","category-infertility-2","category-uncategorized","tag-embryo-disposition","tag-embryo-dispute","tag-embryos","tag-missouri"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918","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=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}