The Nation - News from Aug. 9, 1989

A man testified in Maryville, Tenn., that he would feel “raped of my reproductive rights” if his wife wins control of seven frozen embryos in an unprecedented divorce case. “I’m not asking that they be destroyed,” Junior Lewis Davis, 30, said. “I’m just asking that they not be inserted in Mary or any other donor.” Mary Sue Davis, 28, who followed her husband to the stand, said: “I am the mother of those embryos. To me, they are already fertilized and they are the beginnings of life. I have an attachment to them.” Mrs. Davis contends she should be given control of the seven fertilized eggs she and her husband produced at a Knoxville hospital. Her husband has asked the court to prevent her or anyone else from using the eggs without his consent. Davis also said his upbringing in a boys’ home made him object strongly to bringing a child into a single-parent home. After the couple testified, Blount County Circuit Court Judge W. Dale Young recessed the trial until Thursday.