Judge Rules Frozen Human Embryos are Not Property
A Virginia judge recently ruled that frozen embryonic humans cannot be treated as property to be divided between former spouses, marking a significant legal decision in the growing debate over the status of embryos in American law.
The March 7 ruling overturns a previous court interpretation that likened embryos to “goods or chattel” based on slavery-era laws, the Associated Press JP reported.
Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Dontaè L. Bugg issued the decision in response to a lawsuit brought by Honeyhline Heidemann, who sought access to two frozen embryonic humans she created with her former husband, Jason Heidemann, during a 2015 in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle. The couple had agreed to leave the embryos in storage after their divorce in 2018.
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Honeyhline Heidemann, a cancer survivor, argued that they represented her last chance to conceive another child. Jason Heidemann opposed her claim, maintaining that his former wife being granted access to the embryos “would violate his privacy and personal liberty,” according to a March 7 opinion letter from Bugg.
A previous judge, Richard E. Gardiner, had referenced pre-Civil War laws in suggesting that embryos could be considered divisible under Virginia’s partition statute. Bugg firmly rejected that reasoning in his opinion letter.
“The Court is not persuaded the ‘goods or chattels’ include human embryos,” he wrote, later adding, “[H]uman beings, and by extension embryos they have created, should not as a matter of legislative policy be subject to partition.”
The ruling comes as the legal status of embryos becomes increasingly contested across the country. Several states have classified embryos as human beings under homicide statutes, and in February 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children under state law. Later that month, a U.S. Senate vote failed to establish a nationwide legal right to IVF.
In his March 7 ruling, Bugg noted that no legal precedent exists for valuing or dividing embryos.
“It is obvious that these two human embryos, if implanted and carried to term, would not result in the same two people,” he wrote. “In fact, the embryos are as unique as any two people that may be selected from the population, including siblings with the same biological parents.”
Attorneys on both sides acknowledged the complexities of the case. Honeyhline Heidemann’s lawyer, Jason Zellman, argued that the decision did not require setting a broad legal precedent, while Jason Heidemann’s attorney, Carrie Patterson, maintained that embryos should not be considered property that could be bought, sold, or divided.
LifeNews Note: Rachel Quackenbush writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.