Thursday, November 24, 2016

Can a State Order the Death of Someone's Offspring? Apparently, yes.

It's Thanksgiving day and although I am grateful for all the blessings in my life, I am also reflecting upon the appellate court's decision to sentence my embryos to death.  I finished reading a very cold and disheartening article by Above the Law called "Cold Leftovers: Can a State Require that Extra Embryos Be Implanted?"  It reveled in the fact that the court didn't force my poor, defenseless ex-husband to have to bring the embryos to birth, even though we had an agreement, even though we went through the IVF process to expressly bring the embryos to birth, even though I consider them my children.  This poor man with a Master's degree who attended all the doctor's appointments and agreed to bring two or the four embryos to birth (who are our twins) and agreed to cryofreeze the others with the intention of having more children, now is allowed to walk away and leave these other two siblings of my children to rot.  I think it's amazing how this court's decision is being hailed as a victory for "individual's rights" and preventing "government intrusion" when it is actually the opposite.
First of all, the individual's rights who have truly been trampled on is my rights to have my OWN offspring and my embryo's rights (as living human beings).  It was not their fault that we decided to combine our DNA voluntarily and with deliberate thought to bring them to birth through the IVF process.  The court summarily dismisses any rights they may have or that I may have under Missouri Law and says they are not interfering by NOT enforcing the agreement, which leads me to my next point.  NOT enforcing an agreement that is signed by both parties (under the law that is acknowledgment of the agreement) is actually the definition of "government intrusion" into private agreements.
For those of you who are not convinced that the court didn't go to great lengths to undermine a private decision (made, by the way, when everything was going swimmingly), consider this: The court created new law (yes legislating from the bench) in order to NOT allow me to have my embryos.  Under Missouri law, if they were really considered property, then factors such as who was maintaining them and who wanted them would've been taken into consideration.  But NOOOO, they instead created a new category of property called "property with special character" in order to not give them to me.  If we were talking about any other property, I would've received them no problem, because I could've shown I paid for their maintenance and I wanted them and my ex didn't want them.  So, the Missouri Court of Appeals gave themselves a black eye on this one.  Not only did they say that Missouri's law to protect life "at conception" (when sperm hits egg) was not applicable, they also went to great lengths to invalidate a VALID agreement and sentence by two innocent babies to death.  Way to go Missouri Court of Appeals.  I am sure they are eating turkey today and are with their "loved ones" without a thought to how they deprived me AND my sons of ours.

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