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POTENTIAL IMPACT OF A RULING BY AN ILLINOIS JUDGE THAT AN EMBRYO IS A HUMAN BEING AND THAT A WRONGFUL DEATH CASE COULD BE PURSUED IF IT IS DESTROYED
Day to Day
Anchor: Madeleine Brand
Reporter: David Schaper
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Medical science has helped thousands of people who have had problems getting pregnant, but some fertility experts fear a recent court ruling may put in vitro fertilization jeopardy. An Illinois judge has ruled that an embryo is a human being and that a Chicago couple could pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against a fertility clinic that mistakenly discarded the couple's embryo. From Chicago, NPR's David Schaper reports.
DAVID SCHAPER reporting:
In a bright and clean examination room at the University of Chicago's Center for Advanced Medicine, Dr. David Cohen sits with a pair of nervous new patients.
Dr. DAVID COHEN (Center for Advanced Medicine, University of Chicago): And how long have you guys been trying to get pregnant?
SCHAPER: Cohen asks the couple about their medical histories. He tells them about some tests and treatment options.
Dr. COHEN: ...technologies, things like in vitro fertilization. They take a single sperm and inject it into a single egg.
SCHAPER: What Cohen doesn't tell them is that he's concerned about the future of in vitro fertilization every since Cook County Judge Jeffrey Lawrence ruled that what he calls `pre-embryos' are full human beings under Illinois' wrongful death law.
Dr. COHEN: I don't think it's fair to assign a wrongful death to an embryo that--the same way you would assign it to an adult.
SCHAPER: Cohen says if it stands, Judge Lawrence's ruling could affect the availability of in vitro fertilization.
Dr. COHEN: Doctors take this very, very personally. And if you're going to accuse people of a wrongful death because something happens to those embryos, they're going to seriously consider whether or not they want to expose themselves to that possibility.
SCHAPER: Cohen says while each embryo may potentially be a person, there's no guarantee that any will. He says there's just a 20-percent chance an egg fertilized in a petri dish will be successfully implanted back into the uterus and will then grow into a fetus and a baby. That's why, he says, doctors remove and fertilize several eggs at once, to freeze and store extras for possible later use, which raises questions about what happens under this ruling with all of those unused fertilized eggs.
Ms. LORIE CHAITEN (Director, Reproductive Rights Project, ACLU of Illinois): Are they supposed to keep them forever?
SCHAPER: Lorie Chaiten is director of the Reproductive Rights Project for the ACLU of Illinois.
Ms. CHAITEN: Are they supposed to force their patients to become pregnant as many times as they have fertilized eggs? I mean, if you take it to its logical conclusion, it's just an absurd kind of decision.
SCHAPER: Chaiten says in making this ruling, the judge relied on provisions of Illinois law that higher courts have already held to be unconstitutional or unenforceable. She and many other experts in the field say they believe the ruling will be overturned on appeal, and that includes many of those on the opposite side of the abortion issue. Victor Rosenblum is a law professor at Northwestern University and former chairman of the Americans United for Life Legal Defense Fund.
Professor VICTOR ROSENBLUM (Northwestern University): Was Judge Lawrence violating his oath as a judge? No. He had a judicial basis for reaching that decision. Was it a compelling decision sure to be observed? I think not.
SCHAPER: Rosenblum and others say regardless of the outcome on appeal, the case involves a narrow application of wrongful death law that doesn't at all affect abortion rights and has no standing outside of Illinois.
But he and other experts in reproductive technology law say the case does point to a larger problem: What is the legal status of the estimated 400,000 unimplanted human embryos that are frozen and stored across the country? Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Lori Andrews.
Professor LORI ANDREWS (Chicago-Kent College of Law): Right now in vitro fertilization, which occurs at over 400 clinics throughout the United States, is four-billion-dollar industry. We're the only industrialized nation that does not have a national plan for dealing with reproductive technologies.
SCHAPER: Andrews says this case should prompt legislatures across the country to clean up laws that she says are a mess in regards to the legal status of the human embryo. David Schaper, NPR News, Chicago.
