Embryos not Goods or Chattels

Here’s a praise report.  Virginia Circuit Court Judge Dontae Bugg overturned an outrageous lower decision.  A divorced couple were fighting over two frozen embryos.  The former wife wanted to implant them and the ex-husband said no.  The previous judge rejected the woman’s efforts to save her children, citing a pre-Civil War law under Virginia’s partition statute, calling the embryos “goods or chattels.”  Judge Bugg wrote, “The Court is not persuaded the ‘goods or chattels’ include human embryos.”  He added, “The embryos are as unique as any two people that may be selected from the population.”    Finally, a sound court decision based on solid science and medical fact.  The judge gets it.  These are unique human beings from the moment of fertilization.  Lt’s pray other courts follow.