{"id":80895,"date":"2015-11-24T17:34:28","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T22:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=80895"},"modified":"2015-11-24T23:29:08","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T04:29:08","slug":"judge-in-california-orders-divorced-couples-embryos-destroyed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/judge-in-california-orders-divorced-couples-embryos-destroyed\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge in California orders divorced couple\u2019s embryos destroyed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>A\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/19\/us\/california-judge-orders-frozen-embryos-destroyed.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=0\">judge in California<\/a>\u00a0has order the embryos of a divorced couple be destroyed as the husband has requested and as agreed upon at the time the embryos were created.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Mimi Lee and her husband Stephen Findley created the embryos back in 2010 after Lee was diagnosed with cancer ten days before their wedding. In the paperwork was included the agreement that the embryos would be destroyed if the couple was to divorce.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" src=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/video\/embed?id=32940795\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/\">ABC Breaking News<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Video\">Latest News Videos<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, Lee beat the cancer, but when her treatments ended, Findley filed for divorce. Lee is now 46 years old and infertile, and she told\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Nightline\/video\/woman-explains-shes-fighting-frozen-embryos-32940795\">ABC News<\/a>\u00a0that when her husband filed for divorce, her embryos were her first thought and her number one concern.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m doing this for my babies, and I\u2019m their mom,\u201d Lee tearfully told ABC. \u201cI have biological children ready to come to life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lee says that in order to secure her ability to have children in the future, she risked making her cancer worse by injecting the hormones into her body for the process of IVF, which were the hormones her cancer fed on. Even though her marriage is over, she still wants to be a mother, and these embryos are her only chance at having biological children.<\/p>\n<p>Her lawyer argued that the paperwork the couple, who met as students at Harvard, signed regarding the embryos was not a contract and nowhere in them does it say that the agreement to destroy the embryos if they divorced was irrevocable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a lot of discussion,\u201d said Lee. \u201cWe just kind of went through the form just like we did all the other forms for all the other multiple procedures we were going through at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cases like Lee\u2019s are popping up in courts across the country with some judges ruling in favor of the parent who wants to keep the embryos, and others are ruling in favor of destroying the young lives. In Pennsylvania, a court awarded frozen embryos to a woman who said they would be her only way to have children due to breast cancer treatments despite her ex-husband\u2019s objections. And in Illinois, a judge sided with an infertile woman over a custody fight for embryos with her ex-boyfriend. Judges in other states including New York and New Jersey, however, have ruled in favor of destroying embryos after a divorce.<\/p>\n<p>Findley\u2019s lawyer argued that the document the couple signed says the word \u201cagreement\u201d on it 27 times and that while Findley does want to have children, he doesn\u2019t want to have them with Lee. Findley has expressed concern that Lee would manipulate the situation to get money out of him.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the paperwork, the situation has changed for Lee since the time the embryos were created as she is now infertile, and these embryos are her last chance at having biological children. In addition, due to her cancer diagnosis, it could be argued that she wasn\u2019t in a sound state of mind when she signed the papers.<\/p>\n<p>Lee says she doesn\u2019t expect her ex-husband to play any role in the lives of the children, even financially. She says she will continue to fight for custody of her embryos and is exploring her legal options.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Steve and I created these embryos with the hope of having our children,\u201d said Lee. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine that if we actually did have children and the marriage dissolved, that he would say okay now we have to end the lives of these children because I don\u2019t want to be part of it anymore.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A\u00a0judge in California\u00a0has order the embryos of a divorced couple be destroyed as the husband has requested and as agreed upon at the time the embryos were created. Dr. Mimi Lee and her husband Stephen Findley created the embryos back in 2010 after Lee was diagnosed with cancer ten days before their wedding. In the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":80958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3473],"tags":[6350,6351,6352],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Judge in California orders divorced couple\u2019s embryos destroyed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cI\u2019m doing this for my babies, and I\u2019m their mom. 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