In re Marriage of Rooks

A written agreement with a fertility clinic failed to specify what should have been done with remaining pre-embryos in the event of divorce. The Colorado Supreme Court was asked to decide how a court should determine, in dissolution of marriage proceedings, which spouse should receive remaining cryogenically preserved pre-embryos produced by the couple during their marriage. Although this case fundamentally centered the disposition of a couple’s marital property, “it presents difficult issues of procreational autonomy for which there are no easy answers because it pits one spouse’s right to procreate directly against the other spouse’s equivalently important right to avoid procreation, and because the fundamental liberty and privacy interests at stake are deeply personal and emotionally charged.” The Court determined the Colorado statutes touched on some aspects of assisted reproduction, but they did not address what should happen with a couple’s pre-embryos in a divorce context. In the absence of specific legislative guidance in these circumstances, the Court adopted an approach that sought to balance the parties’ interests given the legislature’s general command in dissolution proceedings requiring the court to divide the marital property equitably. Because the trial court and court of appeals considered certain inappropriate factors in attempting to balance the parties’ interests here, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded the case with directions to return the matter to the trial court to balance the parties’ interests under the framework the Supreme Court adopted in this opinion. View "In re Marriage of Rooks" on Justia Law