Sofia’s embryos and a horror story for our age
Are you thinking what she’s thinking?
SOMEWhERE in a Beverly hills fertility clinic, two little eggs lie in a deep freeze, waiting for a life that might never come. the man who fertilised them — i can’t bring myself to call him daddy — wants them to be born. he has set up a trust fund on their behalf and even given then names, Emma and isabella. the egg mother wants them to be left frozen, suspended on the edge of existence like unfurled buds in a petrified forest.
Around them, a nightmarish legal storm rages — one that might become increasingly commonplace as reproductive technology advances but human beings remain stuck in me-me-me-time, as selfish, thoughtless and bull-headed as ever.
the story so far? it makes for clammy reading.
Modern Family actress sofia Vergara, who is 44, had a two-year engagement to a wealthy businessman called Nick Loeb, 41, but they split in 2014. During their time together they created five embryos.
Vergara then underwent two rounds of in vitro fertilisation, but both failed.
When the couple parted, Loeb allegedly texted her in the manner of a dim but ardent teenager: ‘We still have those 2 frozen babys (sic) so i guess we r always going to have some kind of weird connection.’ indeed. the couple had signed a contract stating neither party could use the embryos without the other’s consent. But Loeb now argues that because the agreement did not expressly state what would happen to the embryos if the couple separated, it should be voided.
he has arranged for a ‘right to live’ lawsuit to be filed on behalf of the embryos against their mother. the claim is that they are being deprived of a trust created for them by Loeb, and, therefore, should be allowed to live to claim their rightful inheritance.
VOiCEs beyond the grave are bad enough but these voices from beyond birth? they give me the chills. Loeb says all he wants is to realise his dream to become a father — as if this were his only option, which it is not.
he has previously made two women pregnant (they both had abortions) and is young enough to start a family of his own in a natural way. Miss Vergara has moved on and married the actor Joe Manganiello. But Loeb can’t let go.
he appears to be acting like a crazy stalker, trying to hold onto his one last connection to this beautiful woman and make her stay in his life for ever — and U.s. law is letting him do it.
it is not unreasonable of her not to want these embryos brought to life. she has said that a child needs ‘a loving relationship and parents that get along, that don’t hate each other’.
she is so right — and what kind of man persists in trying to bring children into the world that their own mother does not want? the psychological damage doesn’t bear thinking about, but Nick Loeb isn’t thinking at all — or only about himself and what he wants.
scientific developments have brought baby joy to millions of people who otherwise might never have become parents. And while that is wonderful progress, the increase in children born via sperm banks, third-party donors and pre-frozen eggs, to surrogate mothers and other variations sometimes leads to complicated moral, ethical and legal dilemmas.
that’s why this case is so unsettling. these embryos have been given names and putative legal rights; how much longer before the sperm held in banks rise up and protest against their incarceration, or the eggs put on ice to delay motherhood while women plan careers scramble for their own civil liberties?
Nick Loeb has shown that all it takes is an obsessive like him to get the nightmarish process going. And it reminds me that, too often, couples in love just rush madly into things — engagement, fertility treatments, babies — without even knowing who the other person really is. Poor babies!