Test-Tube Parents: Cryopreservation and the Fertile Corpse A Retrospective

While an embryo has never been treated by a court as a human being, it is a potential human being or beings (an embryo in the cryopreserved state has the potential for twinning). Because of this, many are disturbed by the destruction of an otherwise viable embryo. The fact that cryopreserved material is ordinarily in the possession of a cryopreservation facility may complicate such an assumption. [...]in general, courts have been reluctant to permit posthumous sperm retrieval or embryo transfer without a previous clear and explicit declaration, usually in writing, by the deceased. [...]there is the matter of consent, as discussed above, since extraction is arguably a medical procedure that would require it. [...]in some ways, incompetency resembles death for purposes of progenitor "consent" and determination of legal parentage. With the advances in the technology of cryopreservation since the Rios case, the possibility has arisen that several years may pass between the time of embryo or gamete freezing and live birth. [...]the issue of whether genetic or biological parentage confers legal parentage needs to be addressed.