​You have been served- by your embryos’

On Thursday 8th December, the BBC reported a peculiar suit filed in the state of Louisiana, USA. Court documents obtained by the New York post indicate that Emma and Isabella have sued their mother. This sounds normal until you hear the bizarre circumstances under which this suit has been brought.
You see 2 years ago, Sofia Vergara an actress in the popular series Modern family and Nick Loeb, a businessman decided to have their fertilised embryos frozen and kept, apparently to be brought to term later. They went ahead to sign a contract that made it mandatory for the consent of the other to be obtained before the embryos could be used for any purpose by one of them. The relationship hit the rocks and they called it off. Fast forward and the father of the embryos, backed by a number of pro-life bodies wants his embryos (which he has named Emma and Isabella) planted in a surrogate mother and allowed to be born. He argues that they are being denied the opportunity to benefit from a trust created for them. Ms. Vergara wants none of this. So Loeb has brought a suit against his ex on behalf of his embryo

Of course, the first question to come up in ones mind is, do the embryos have the capacity to sue? Interestingly, the law in Louisiana recognises embryos as juristic persons. (It is partly because of such laws that Louisiana is considered a pro-life state) Juristic persons are those with the capacity to sue or be sued. They can be both natural and unnatural. The natural persons are human beings while unnatural ones include companies and body corporates. The unnatural juristic persons are normally involved in civil disputes and not criminal matters.

Most importantly and also the reason why I penned this article, the case resurrects the debate on when a fertilised egg should be considered a human being. In Ohio, Republicans are preparing anti-abortion legislation that would make it illegal to abort, once the embryo has a heartbeat, which is in effect a 6week embryo. To them once the embryo attains a heartbeat, it is deemed a human being. According to the Catholic Church, an embryo is a human being upon conception. The locus classicus in the area of abortion is Roe V Wade. In this case, the US Supreme Court decided that the right to privacy extended to a womans decision to have an abortion. It however tied individual states anti-abortion legislation to the third trimester of pregnancy. The rationale was that the potentiality of human life became stronger over the course of a pregnancy and that a woman has the right to abortion until fetal viability. It went on to define viable as potentially able to live outside the mothers womb, albeit with artificial aid. The third trimester rule was later altered in Planned Parenthood V Casey (1992) where the U.S Supreme Court acknowledged that in light of medical advancements, viability of an unborn baby may be attained at 23 or 24 weeks and sometimes earlier.

The rest of this story is available on wordpress at the link below.

Originally published at ntungwerishoc.wordpress.com on December 10, 2016.