Frozen Embryo Case Study

I do not agree with the trial court’s decision in this case. I fully support Randy’s side of the case and I believe that the trial court erred when it awarded the three frozen embryos to Augusta because the award violated the parties’ embryo agreement. In addition, the agreement clearly provided for disposal of the frozen embryos in the case of divorce and the trial court was wrong for not enforcing that agreement. The specific provision in the embryo agreement stated that “we consent and authorize the embryos to be stored in a frozen state until Dr. Schnell and the IVF Laboratory determine that appropriate conditions exist for transfer of the embryos to the wife’s uterus and both the husband and wife agree to the transfer.” The trial court failed to honor the provisions of the embryo agreement because Randy (the husband) clear did not agree to the transfer. In fact, he was completely opposed to it.
The provisions also stated that
Davis (1992), in which the Supreme Court of Tennessee had stated that agreements between the progenitors should be presumed valid and enforced. Kass v. Kass (1998) reinforced this opinion, wherein the Court of Appeals of New York unanimously chose to uphold a consent agreement to donate the couple’s preembryos to research. In J.B. v. M.B. (2000) the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that it would enforce IVF agreements, subject to the right of either progenitor to change his or her mind about the allocation of the preembryos at a later time. A.Z. v. B.Z. (2000) reinforced this position, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court indicated that consent agreements should not be enforced if one party later prefers a different result for the preembryos. Lastly, and most significant to the Roman v. Roman case, the Supreme Court of Iowa proclaimed in the case In re Marriage of Witten (2003) that neither party could use their preembryos without the other party’s contemporaneous mutual