Human Embryos Custody Case

I hope Kate Michelman (executive director of the National Abortions Rights Action League) rethinks her hasty remark that the decision awarding custody of frozen embryos to Mary Sue Davis represents a “dangerous implication for reproductive freedom. . . .” To have supported Junior Davis’ position that these embryos are “property” and that he should not have to father a child against his will would have had immediate and far-reaching effects on a woman’s right to control her body.

Once conception has taken place a man’s biological function in the reproductive cycle is fulfilled. Since Roe vs. Wade, law has supported the woman’s exclusive right to make all decisions subsequent to conception, including the right to terminate the pregnancy or bring to term a child.

Junior Davis consented to these conceptions and, until the breakup of his marriage, consented to full-term planned pregnancies. He changed his mind after the fact of conception. A decision to support Mr. Davis’ right to change his mind and prevent the birth of an already conceived embryo would seriously jeopardize the rights of women and subject them to lawsuits from disgruntled boyfriends or mates demanding to terminate these pregnancies because they “do not want to be fathers against their will.”

DARLEEN MURPHY

Ontario