Free Republic

In divorce case judge rules human embryos may be valued and sold, and therefore may be considered ‘goods or chattels’Frozen human embryos can legally be considered property, or “chattel”, a Virginia judge has ruled, basing his decision in part on a 19th-century law governing the treatment of enslaved people. The preliminary opinion by a Fairfax county circuit court judge, Richard Gardiner, which he delivered in a long-running dispute between a divorced husband and wife, is being criticized by some for wrongly and unnecessarily delving into a time in Virginia history when it was legal to own human beings. “It’s repulsive...