While George Bush and friends ponder whether it’s ethical and morally correct to use stem cells from a handful of embryos for scientific advancement, one couple—ironically from Texas—are battling each other over the rights of their own embryos.

The couple, Augusta and Randy Roman, are divorced but stillfighting over their frozen embryos that they stored after Augusta miscarried. Despite the divorce, she wants to have children using the embryos and he wants them either to be destroyed or kept frozen.

Augusta, who is 45, says using these embryos—which were created from her own extracted eggs and Randy’s sperm—are her last chance at having her own biological children. Randy says the embryos weren’t intended tobe used outside of their marriage or in a way that limits him to serving as a “sperm donor.”

The fight and court case of Roman v. Roman is so heated it will go before the Texas Supreme Court. Previously, a Houston trial court ordered the embryos to be turned over to Augusta, but Randy appealed and won. The Supreme Court case isn’t yet scheduled, and there are reasonable arguments to be made in favor of both sides, but it’s plausible that the fight will ultimately come down to one simple document. It’s a consent form signed in 2002 stating that the embryos would be discarded in the case of divorce.

I can see how Mr. Roman, at this point in time, doesn’t want children to come out of a marriage that’s ended. But let’s face it, sperm is cheap and rather easy to come by. For him, it’s only about masturbating into a cup.

I’ve never personally had eggs extracted, but I know it’s not fun. And it’s certainly not something a woman would want to do more than once, even if she wasn’t considered “too old” to have her eggs harvested. I hope for Augusta’s case the decision is made with the sensitivity of the issue in mind.

Let’s also hope this serves as a cautionary tale for married and single women to keep those eggs on ice—unfertilized!

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-embryo10_bdjun10,1,2017005.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed