Illinois couple granted right to sue over discarded embryo
CHICAGO A Chicago judge has cleared the way for a couple to sue a fertility clinic that accidentally destroyed their frozen embroyos. Cook County Judge Jeffrey Lawrence says the couple has the right under Illinois law to file a wrongful-death lawsuit. In an opinion issued Friday, Lawrence wrote that "a pre-embryo is a human being."
The couple stored nine embryos with Chicago's Center for Human Reproduction in January of 2000. They were told six months later that the embryos had been accidentally discarded.
Although another judge had dismissed the couple's wrongful death claims, Lawrence reversed that decision. He cited state law declaring that human life begins at conception in declaring the embryo was a legal person.
Lawyers for the fertility clinic say they plan to appeal.
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