“Can a client claim frozen embryos as dependents?”
In Financial Planning magazine, Sophia Duffy discusses a February 2024 Supreme Court of Alabama decision that embryos stored in a medical facility for fertilization purposes have the same rights as “born” individuals. In her article, Duffy, an estate planning attorney, calls financial planners’ attention to how this ruling – and rulings in other states about frozen embryos – might affect their clients’ financial and estate planning decisions.
A 2024 Indiana ruling stated that pre-embryos aren’t entitled to “personhood”, but parents do have decision-making authority over the disposition of any unused pre-embryos. That means that, under the law in our state, embryos are property and, if the creators die, those embryos can be willed to others. Most companies that store embryos have language in their contracts as to what happens if the creators die in the absence of designations in the parents’ estate planning. In general, the woman who gives birth to the child is the legal mother and the father is the man she is married to, if she is married.
At Geyer Law, we explain to clients that there are a variety of choices in terms of estate planning for the frozen embryos (also known as “in vitro” after some have been implanted in the process of fertilization). The creators may choose to:
- allow the embryos to be destroyed
- allow them to be used for research
- donate them to women unable to conceive (either anonymously or with open lines of communication between the donor and recipient)
The process of donating frozen embryos is combined with adoption. The genetic parents of the frozen embryos transfer their legal rights to another couple, who then adopt the embryo and become parents to the child when it is born.
The Indiana Supreme Court has found “our laws have long reflected that Hoosiers, through their elected representatives, may collectively conclude that legal protections inherent in personhood commence before birth, so the State’s broad authority to protect the public’s health, welfare, and safety extends to protecting prenatal life.” Therefore, although Indiana law attributes “human physical life” to fertilized eggs in utero, it sets pre-embryos in vitro apart. …
Over our twenty-five years of helping plan and administer estates, we have come to understand the challenges, fears, and family dynamics that come into play with all manner of legal issues. We will continue in our empathetic and compassionate approach as we guide parents through the new opportunities available through rapidly developing science of assisted reproduction..
– by Rebecca W Geyer
