Tennessee Court Backs Man’s Right to Block Use of Embryos

A divorced man has a right to block the use of seven embryos that a clinic froze for him and his ex-wife 3 1/2 years ago, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday.

The five-member court said that there was little legal history on which to base its decision but that, based on privacy rights, Junior Lewis Davis should not be forced into fatherhood.

After the Davises divorced, his former wife said she might have the embryos implanted. Then she offered to donate the embryos to another infertile couple.

Had that been allowed, the court said, Davis “would face a lifetime of either wondering about his parental status or knowing about his parental status but having no control over it.”

“I’m ecstatic,” Davis told the Nashville Banner. “I think this is a great step for men as far as having a (biological) right.”

His ex-wife, now Mary Sue Davis Stowe, was disappointed but “not particularly surprised” by the court’s ruling, said her attorney, Kurt Erlenbach of Titusville, Fla.

Her eggs were fertilized with Davis’ sperm at a Knoxville in-vitro fertilization clinic in December, 1988, after they were unable to conceive naturally. The couple later divorced.

The embryos remain at the clinic, frozen in liquid nitrogen.

The high court’s ambiguous ruling said the clinic now “is free to follow its normal procedure in dealing with unused pre-embryos, as long as that procedure is not in conflict with this opinion.”

Dr. I. Ray King, the clinic’s owner, said he would not comment until after he met with his attorney Wednesday.

Erlenbach said that there was little ground for appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and that Stowe would pursue other options for children, including in vitro fertilization with her current husband.

“Ordinarily, the party wishing to avoid procreation should prevail,” the court said, but that could be offset by the other party’s inability to have children by any other means.

The court said that was not the case for Stowe in her legal battle with her ex-husband, who has remarried and lives in Maryville, Tenn.

Stowe is also remarried and living in Florida.