Ms. Murray is to be commended for stating very cleary 'the judge in this case...was correct in his strict legal interpretation of the...Act' in her article. But she is much less clear in the remainder of her article. On the one hand, the subtitle 'the law is an ass' gives the impression she is blaming the law and wants it to be changed. On the other hand, nearly all of the article is restricted to a tear-jerker description of the two men's heartlessness and how the women feel.

We all know how it goes: When people split up there are very hurt feelings and each party tells her or his closest friend what an asshole the former partner is. If you talk to the one who is left you always hear his or her you picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille. Let me cite McGrath here approvingly: There is very seldom only black and white. I don't know any of the people involved, so I could even imagine I would agree that the two men involved have no heart if I knew them. But my impression is that Ms. Murray knows no more than I do.

If Ms. Murray wants to discuss the law she does not need to emotionalise the issue for most of the article. If she wants to discuss male heartlessness she does not need to blame the law. I can't help thinking that she does not consider her argument a strong one otherwise she would have stopped at outlining the case without the additional emotionalisation. She uses the emotions to cover her weak points:

At no point she clearly says what she thinks about the problem who will has to pay for the child. Does she want the biological father to pay for a child which has been 'embryoed' long after the relationship to the mother has ended? Could a woman use 'her' 'embryo' even if she could get a child another way (scenario: embryo on ice, relationship too, years later she has a new relationship but both decide to use the old embryo for the old partner now has a lot of money)? If a new law states the biological father has not to pay for what comes from using his embryo, does that not violate basic human rights of the later child for there would be a subset of children without any rights in relation to their biological fathers (once stated to be illegal by the European Court by the way in a case of inheritance)? Could the woman give 'her' embryo to another woman to carry it for her? And so on. Any change of the law has to be considered very carefully. I think in the end of deliberation the present law may turn out to be the best solution. In single cases, there will always be situations in which our hearts go out to someone who quite correctly will not win a court case. Not all possible unfairness can be prevented by laws. Life sometimes is unfair.

What bothers me most in the article is the possessive 'theirs' in the subtitle (the author may not be responsible for the subtitle) and in the article. Imagine a subtitle: 'The law is an ass for stopping two women from using their former partners' embryos'. Why it is so clear that the embryos belong to the women eludes me here. The 'their' in the subtitle very cleverly slants the discussion in one direction.

The one clear question is who can decide what happens with the zygote. And all that talk about 'human beings are never property' is completely irrelevant for if someone can decide what happens with the zygote and this decision can even be the destruction then we talk about property and nothing else (if you don't want that you must preclude the possibility of destruction with crazy consequences, if you think it through).

(1) Is it both like now then we must live with emotional anger in single cases.
(2) Is it the woman alone then we must accept that she even could allow another mother to carry out her embryo (there could be medical reasons for that) with all the consequences and we must then answer the question about who pays and what are the human rights of the later child.
(3) Is it whoever comes first without consent of the other (except for destruction). In this case any clever man fearing monetary consequences will quickly destroy the zygotes after a separation by having them implanted into another woman, but, alas, at the wrong time and so there'll be no fetus.

Once you start thinking about it without letting emotions cloud your judgement I think you'll find that the present law is still a very good compromise.

Wolfgang