JUSTICES RULE THAT DIVORCED MAN DOESN'T HAVE TO BECOME A FATHER

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 23, 1993                   TAG: 9302230064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
JUSTICES RULE THAT DIVORCED MAN DOESN'T HAVE TO BECOME A FATHER
A long legal drama over the fate of seven fertilized human eggs neared a final curtain Monday as the Supreme Court turned aside a plea to give them a full right to life.
A Florida woman who says she wants to become a mother through development of those eggs, over the objection of her former husband, failed to get a hearing before the justices. Her ex-husband, the sperm donor, wants the frozen "pre-embryos" destroyed, and now may be able to have that done.
As a result of the court's action Monday, control over eggs involved in thousands of laboratory-dish experiments across the nation will be left to the donors or, if they disagree, to varying laws of the states and not the U.S. Constitution.
The case had gone to the court after a series of lower-court rulings in Tennessee, raising new controversy at each stage. A childless couple produced the fertilized eggs in hopes of becoming parents. Seven eggs remain in a freezer in a fertility laboratory; they may survive in a frozen state for up to a decade.
When the couple's marriage collapsed, they were divorced with the fate of the eggs left unsettled legally. Ultimately, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in June that the eggs are not "persons," but are not mere human tissue, either, and thus deserve some legal protection.
It decided, though, that when the donors of such eggs cannot agree on whether to have them implanted, the donor who objects to becoming a parent generally should have the say. In this case, the former husband, Junior Lewis Davis of Marysville, Tenn., opposes implantation of any of the eggs.
His former wife, Mary Sue Davis Stowe, now living in Florida, wanted the state courts to give her ownership so she could allow her to donate the eggs for implantation in another woman's body, so that the eggs "could grow up in a normal family."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB