The Thomas More Society has filed an amicus brief on behalf of Nick Loeb, the former fiancé of Modern Family star Sofía Vergara, in the dispute over two embryos which were meant to be carried by a surrogate before the couple split in 2014. The Daily Mail reports...
Thomas More Society – a Chicago-based law firm which defends Christian causes with a focus on those involved in the pro-life movement – filed an amicus brief, which is also known as a friend of the court brief, in Los Angeles.
The law firm did so to aid Nick on his quest to gain control of the embryos and on the behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
Loeb refers to the two female embryos as his “daughters” and is fighting for their custody, while Vergara wants them destroyed. The brief filed by the Thomas More Society states that the children created through IVF should not be treated as property, but as human beings:
A review of the current relevant science establishes that the embryos are human beings at fertilization and may not be treated, as some courts have done, as property, or as less than fully human, and without rights to parental or governmental protection.
Legal documents in the case allege that Vergara frequently abused Loeb and coerced him to sign documents regarding the children that he did not wish to sign. Again, the Daily Mail reports:
Court documents alleged Sofia bullied Nick but told her ex-fiance she had started IVF for him to become a father.
The legal papers claims the 43-year-old actress told Nick she was pro-life and that she promised each embryo created would ultimately be implanted into a surrogate.
However, the Colombian actress, who recently married actor Joe Manganiello, claims that her former flame is just trying to take advantage of her career by publicly fighting to take the embryos to full term.
The use of IVF and surrogacy are controversial for several reasons, one of which was mentioned by the Thomas More Society: in the fertility industry, children conceived through artificial means are often treated as commodities and as disposable property instead of as human beings with rights.
Besides the two daughters conceived through IVF, Vergara has an adult son from a previous marriage.
