Expert weighs in on Sofia Vergara-Nick Loeb embryo dispute
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, April 16, 2015, 3:52 PM
John Shearer/Invision/AP“Modern Family” actress Sofia Vergara’s former fiancé, Nick Loeb (l.), filed suit — after the pair broke up — to try to preserve two embryos from the couple’s in vitro fertilization attempts.
The legal battle actress Sofia Vergara is waging with ex-boyfriend Nick Loeb over frozen embryos is one that couples have fought since at least the early 1990s.
“It’s coming up more and more frequently,” said George Washington University Law School Professor Naomi Cahn.
“I recommend that at the time of undergoing fertility agreements people not only sign agreements but think about this really carefully . . . The options are: Do you want the embryos hurt? Do you want to divide them? Do you want to donate them to research? It’s vital to think about that during a time of relation harmony with your partner,” she said.
“Modern Family” actress Vergara’s former fiancé filed suit in August — after the pair broke up — to try to preserve two embryos from the couple’s in vitro fertilization attempts.
Most clinics use consent forms that require both patient and a partner to answer specific questions about what to do if the couple splits up or one of them dies, experts say.
In Loeb and Vergara’s situation, they answered questions about what should take place in the case of one or both of their deaths, but not separation, according to court documents.
Sometimes, a divorcing spouse will challenge the covenant, Cahn said. Some courts have said that a pair must come to mutual consent about what should take place, while others will try to balance the parties’ interests and come to a choice.
In general, courts tend not to allow the “possibility of children being made over the objections of one of the parents,” Cahn said.
Venturelli/Getty ImagesSofia Vergara attends the 2015 Vanity Honest Oscar Have fun in February in Beverly Hills.
Even couples that stay together must choose what to do with embryos in frozen storage after they have kids or choose to stop trying.
Some discard them, and some donate them to other couples trying to have children or to methodical research. Others pay hundreds of dollars each year to keep them in storage.
Experts estimate that there are about 400,000 embryos in frozen storage in the U.S.
They remain viable for a decade or longer — in 2010, a woman gave birth to a baby boy after the embryo had been frozen for more than 19 years, according to a report in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
“We don’t think that there is a significant impact when an embryo is frozen for a couple of years or for a decade,” said Dr. Tomer Singer, director of egg freezing for the North Shore LIJ Shape System.
Singer said that Lenox Hill Human Reproduction in Manhattan, where he works, will store frozen embryos, charging about $ 500 to $ 600 each year, in anticipation of a woman turns 51.
At that time, the embryos are either discarded or donated to research, he said.
