Sofia Vergara and Nick Loeb were together, on and off, for years. They were engaged, they lived together, they were planning a future together, and then they weren’t. They repeated that cycle many times. At various points, Sofia talked about having a baby with Nick, and how she froze some of her eggs and was thinking about either getting pregnant or having a gestational carrier. I always thought that Sofia really wasn’t all that interested in having another baby, that Nick was the one wanting to turn Sofia into a stay-at-home wife and mother, because he just seems like that kind of dude (the kind of dude who was jealous of her career and success). I also heard stories that Nick and Sofia had gone so far as to create some frozen embryos and they had picked out their gestational carrier and everything.
Well, now that Nick and Sofia are totally done and she’s with Joe Manganiello, Nick is apparently suing Sofia over their frozen embryos. This is according to In Touch Weekly – they got their hands on some documents claiming Loeb (going by John Doe) wants to stop Sofia from destroying the embryos they created while together. I’m pretty sure this was a case on Law & Order.
Sofía Vergara’s former fiancé, Nick Loeb, has filed a lawsuit in California to prevent her from destroying two cryopreserved female embryos created through in vitro fertilization, In Touch Weekly is reporting exclusively. Court documents obtained exclusively by In Touch reveal that just six months before their split, in November 2013, Nick and Sofía had embryos created as a result of his sperm and her eggs being fertilized.
Nick, who filed the suit under the pseudonym John Doe, “seeks to ensure that the Female Embryos are not destroyed, but Jane Doe [Sofía] refuses to agree to their preservation under all circumstances,” the document obtained by In Touch states. (The lawsuit was originally filed in August 2014; it was amended with new information and refiled on April 1 after Nick sought new representation.)
The court papers also claim that the 42-year-old actress “was physically and mentally abusive” to Nick on numerous occasions. “She punched him in the face on two occasions, kicked him, and threw her phone at his head. She also routinely bullied him, calling him a ‘loser,’ ‘worthless’ and other degrading names,” according to the papers.
In Touch has also learned, via the documents, that the couple previously used a surrogate and twice unsuccessfully had their embryo implanted in her. “Nick has always wanted to be a father and will do whatever it takes to save these two remaining female embryos,” an insider close to the situation tells In Touch. “Nick is very emotionally invested in these female embryos because he’s pro-life and believes life begins at conception.”
The court documents also state “John seeks to save from destruction two cryopreserved Female Embryos created using John’s sperm and Jane’s ova for the purposes of attempting to have children. However, before the Female Embryos could be implanted in a surrogate, the Parties ended their relationship,” adding that Sofía “hoped for the Female Embryos to ultimately be destroyed” but “John does not desire for the Female Embryos to be destroyed.”
The documents claim that when Nick and Sofía met at the California-based fertility center on Nov. 16, 2013 — four months after their engagement and prior to undergoing a second round of IVF — they got into a heated argument about what should happen to the new embryos in the event of their death. (The center provided forms to the couple for a decision about what would happen in the event of death — but not separation, Nick claims in the document. Because of this, he is also suing the center to prevent them from destroying the embryos.) “Jane insisted that in such a circumstance, the Female Embryos be thawed with no further action,” state the documents. “John did not agree with Jane and refused to initial his agreement regarding that term.”
“Jane insisted that John agree to the destruction of the Female Embryos under that circumstance, and began vigorously berating him in the offices,” the documents claim, adding that Sofía had a history of physically and emotionally abusing Nick. “John Doe signed this portion of the Former Directive, even though he did not agree with it, in order to avoid further abuse.”
This is pretty crazy, right? Loeb is very much aligned with Republican politics (there was even talk of Loeb running for political office in Florida), and I figured he was anti-choice. But honestly, say he gets what he wants and these embryos are not destroyed. What will he do then? Ask some other woman to be his gestational carrier and then raise the daughter on his own? I wouldn’t even put it past Loeb to sue Sofia for child support in that situation. And yes, this was definitely an episode of Law & Order.
As for Sofia abusing him and hitting him… O RLY? I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
His eyes scream ‘crazy’.
It is also sadly very stereotypical to use the fiery and violent woman angle when it comes to latin women, and so again why does he want her to have his babies if this is her character.
It’s come up before. I think there’s truth to Sophia making physical contact out of anger. She’s strong opinionated and gravitates to men that could easily be seen as crazy and get physical. That these stories didn’t start with him only supports she likely has rasised her hand in anger.
@FLORC, hate to say it, but I agree with you.
@Loopy- he doesn’t want her to have his babies though, he wants to have their babies without her.
Maybe, undoubtedly, those embryos were conceived out of a loving sexual act when they were in love with each other. Maybe he’s given up on the love he had for Sofia but that doesn’t mean he has, or has to, give up on the feelings he holds for what they conceived together, out of love. I’m not saying it makes sense- or even sense to me, but he might FEEL that way, and he’s allowed to.
@Jonathan They weren’t conceived out of a sexual act. They were created in vitro fert, in a medical lab.
Why would you want to have an ex’s baby? That seems ridiculous to me. I always got a creepy vibe off this guy. They’re her embryos, have they been fertilized?
If they are embryos, then his sperm did indeed unite with her egg and I assume the result developed beyond the zygote stage. I can see his point, but what a sticky situation. Destroying them would basically be an abortion, and some guys are not happy about that if they intended to be a father. Since the embryos are not inside her but rather are externally maintained, this does make it a child custody type issue. She doesn’t risk anything if he takes the embryos, it’s not like making a woman remain pregnant against her will. But it’s an uncomfortable situation for her regardless.
Since it was never implanted in a uterus, it’s not an abortion. You can’t ‘abort’ what never started.
This sounds like a control freak holding on to property in order to stay connected with an ex.
It seems like he’ll win no?
I mean, personal autonomy- the basis for abortion legalization- is not an issue and the notion that someone can create a child with your genetic material despite your reluctance is taken for a given nowadays (except it’s usually happening to the man).
I’m really curious about what challenge could really be mounted here.
Either way, the idea of having an ex’s babies this way is…super-weird.
He may win in not having them destroyed, but I can’t imagine that he would be able to actually use them, without permission, since half of it is her property and he can’t implant them into himself.
That was my thought too Kiddo. This is a tricky situation, but it sounds to me like they should agree to not destroy them but only on the condition that neither can use them without the other’s permission.
If he wants to be a father, he does have other options.
“She doesn’t risk anything if he takes the embryos, it’s not like making a woman remain pregnant against her will. But it’s an uncomfortable situation for her regardless.”
She wouldn’t be pregnant against her will…but she would have her own genetic children brought into this world and raised by a man that she doesn’t much like. This is a very tough situation. It isn’t like he was a single man that wanted a child and he went and got a donated egg and surrogate mother to that end. These embryos are made from her eggs. Not an anonymous donor, and they were created when they were together with the intention of possibly having children and raising them together.
I am pro-choice. If this embryo was already implanted IN Sophia, and they split and she wanted to abort, I would support her right NOT to remain pregnant. But since the embryos are not IN Sophia, and Nick WANTS them….ugh, I think the idea of allowing them to be destroyed is awful. This is just really complicated.
That said, he *seems* like a complete creep–and the idea that he is suing JUST to stick it to her? That part also leaves me torn.
I think it is awesome that science has come so far and that there are so many ways to help people that want to have babies who have trouble conceiving. But sometimes, you end up with these situations that are very hard to unravel.
I suppose plenty of couples with children divorce and then the parents are stuck dealing with each other for life. Maybe this isn’t that different?
There is no way any U.S. clinic or court will ever allow the embryos to be used without Sofia’s consent. That option is not on the table.
Embryos are fertilized eggs.
They are not implanted – they are in limbo. They will not develop. They are not alive. It is not an abortion. SMH
Next anti choice people will be saying I am aborting by mensruating
Do you remember Reese Witherspoon’s legal problem about the paternity in Legally Blonde?
Sarah- abortion is simply deliberate or accidental loss of the embryo/fetus (when unintended, commonly called miscarriage). Of course they are alive up to that point, although dormant when frozen. Cells are alive. If implanted or otherwise sustained artificially, they are capable of further development with luck (most zygotes really don’t get very far naturally, it’s a rough road from conception to birth). If freezing killed the embryo, then the whole procedure would be pointless.
This is a separate issue from legalization of abortion when that is the woman’s choice, since she has a right to her body that trumps any potential for a successful journey to birth of the embryo or fetus. Things get murky enough when the fetus is at a point of being able to survive outside the womb (will society pay for transfer to appropriate life support as that point becomes younger and younger with advancing technology?), which is why most societies have cutoff times for legal abortion. This is much murkier – the embryos are already being maintained outside the womb, by freezing since they are at such a simple stage. They share DNA from both parents. This really is a strange custody battle and not really just about property. There is a chance (although possibly slim, considering the history) that those embryos could be successfully implanted in someone and make it all the way to birth. This is definitely a thorny issue, not only in this situation but whenever embryos are frozen.
I think it’s unrealistic to assume that just because guys have millions of sperm, they can’t become emotionally attached to the product of one successful swimmer entering the egg. A friend thought he was fine with abortion until he held his first genetic child in his arms. His whole attitude changed, he now had an emotional response to the potential for life represented by every zygote. This wasn’t a political or religious thing for him (he was cheerfully atheist), it was deep. I messed with him a little by casually mentioning that most contraceptive methods can be (rarely) abortifacient if a zygote happens to arise in the hostile environment created – you should have seen the tortured look on his face! I think his wife must have calmed him down, he didn’t end up with more than two genetic kids in addition to his stepdaughter.
.
He is a creep.
I think that he is doing this to hurt her for moving on. If i were a Judge I would make him prove that he is biologically unable to have more children, if he can’t then he would lose the case, if he can then i would rule that the embryos can not be destroyed or used unless both parties agree on terms. women freeze their eggs for a reason( good eggs are limited….etc), i thinks that she stands to lose more by them being destroyed than him…. and that he is emotionally attached to her not the embryos and is trying so desperately to hold on. it’s sad, and creepy.
I think it’s all about the money. He can have children whenever wherever down the road. No biological clock ticking there.
He’s just…Yeccch. It’s good she got away from him.
Yea, I was like WHAAAT? Wouldn’t anyone who carried those embryos, carry a Nick/Sofia baby? WEIRD.
It’s probably a control/LOOK AT ME! tactic.
Definitely agree about the control issue. He could 100% have a baby with another woman if he wanted to be a father, so I doubt that the issue is truly fatherhood or even being pro-life. I think it’s about him wanting to reel her back into his life.
That’s how I read it.
I think you are probably right. It IS probably a control thing. But if they go to court—I wonder if that will be considered? I am no legal expert, but I fear that if this went to court the entire case would come down to simply “does he have a right to take those embryos and have them brought to term if SHE doesn’t want that?” And what kind of scary precedent can be set by the way the judge rules here?
Agreed, definitely feels like he’s trying to maintain some level of control over Sofia. He seems pretty twisted.
Completely control. Or it’s always been his dream to have a child of genetic blessings with a woman he despises. It could be that.
LOL!!
Ridiculous. He can probably make babies for another 30 years.
This is about screwing her however he can.
Oo this is sketchy ethically speaking. Surely he couldn’t use the embryo without her consent as it’s her own egg and maybe she can’t destroy without his consent for the same reason… innnnnneresting!! I’d like to see what happens. I am very pro reproductive rights but some situations do need some consideration as to how they should legally play out.
It sounds horrible, but I’m also very interested in seeing how this plays out. Just to see what kind of legal precedent is set. I mean, it sounds like he’s only asking that they not be destroyed. Okay, but embryos have a shelf life. They have to be implanted within a certain number of years or they die anyway. And what if he did want them implanted in a surrogate? Even if he wins his current suit, the embryos just stay in storage, and he’d have to file a custody suit in the future. I have so many questions…
This is VERY messy! I am pro-choice and give the side eye to pro-lifers. However, due to technology you now have a woman on equal footing with men in regard to the loss of control once their baby making DNA has been combined..
A man and a women have intercourse which leads to pregnancy. Due to biology, her body her rights, a woman can unilaterally decide to go forward with the pregnancy. With IVF, the pregnancy has not occurred in her body yet both parties have combined their baby batter so to speak!
Personally I think, unless he has suffered loss of fertility and those embryos are his last chance at having children he should not be allowed to implant them in a surrogate. Both parties have to agree to proceed and become parents.
He’s a dude, he can impregnate other women. She’s 42, she has a limited window for egg production but has chosen to cut ties with Nick and these embryos. Very telling!
This is completely about control. There is no reason he needs those embryos. He is doing this just to drag her through the court system b/c she wants to “destroy a life.” Ughhhhh.
Someone’s seething with envy that she has moved on to a stable situation.
Embryos = fertilized eggs. Or else they would be called her frozen eggs.
As someone who struggled with infertility before having my kids, it made my skin crawl to read this ” the Female Embryos be thawed with no further action” …but I don’t get why he would want them except to keep Vergara on the hook indefinitely…crazy guy!!
Yikes! Yes, it’s so clinical about creating life, it’s scary…
I don’t blame her , and really they should have iron tight clauses on when/if a relationship breaks down and a couple have done this. Look at the mess that Sheree Shepard is in.
Sherri’s situation is so twisted. Last I read the surrogate was being sued for child support, since Sherri abandoned the baby and there was no mother, they put her name on the birth certificate!? How is that even possible? She had a contract as a surrogate only, and the baby is not her biological child, it’s Sherri’s. I hope when this is all done, Sherri has to pay back all the surrogate’s legal expenses and everything.
From what I’ve read, due to the laws of the state the baby was born in and the state recognizing surrogacy, the surrogate could get her name removed from the birth certificate if she wanted. Why she hasn’t, IDK but it’s all on the surrogate at this point.
The Sherri situation is incredibly complicated. Her assertion is that she intended to use her egg with his sperm but somewhere along the way her eggs got switched with his mistress (or ex depending on who you ask). I don’t know if she was aware that it was not her egg that was used to create the embryo but she certainly didn’t know that the mistress/ex was the donor. It was fraud on a whole other level. The egg donor should simply have stepped up for the burth certificate but then doing so would expose the scheme and sabotage the alimony and child support claims that daddy had lined up. The surrogate was listed in the birth certificate by default and she had the option to challenge it. So either she just doesn’t want to add to the mummy issues this child is destined to have or Shes lining up to sue Sherri for damages herself and leaving her name attached to the baby helps that money grab.
Can someone tell me — I have heard numerous times that the donated egg was from Shepherd’s ex’s former girlfriend. Is that true? Also, was she also the surrogate? Could that have something to do with the surrogate not removing her name from the birth certificate? Without knowing all of the facts on the Shepherd case, I really am not against Sherri’s present point of view on this, and why she will not claim to be the mom of this child. I almost wonder if he had a baby with his sperm and his ex’s egg, tried to designate Sherri as the mom on the birth certificate, then divorce her and retain custody, so Sherri could support them all for the next 18 years. I could be way off, not knowing some pertinent facts about the egg and surrogate, as I said.
Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner.
They fully expected Sheree to support him and the baby for 18 years.
Pretty much right. He filed for divorce, full custody, child support, and spousal support a few months before the child was born. The situation sucks for the child, but the father is an asshole. He had no intention of raising that child with her.
WTF. I had not heard any of this about the Sherri Shepherd situation. That is so incredibly f***ed up.
@LNG. Ditto, WTF. If true, this dude is one calculating, shameless MF.
Why would someone with his beliefs freeze embryos to begin with? If he believes they are “people,” does he think the unsuccessfully implanted ones were murdered? It sounds like he didn’t think through the consequences of his actions.
Exactly, smacks of self-serving hypocrisy to me.
That’s a really interesting perspective, GNAT.
I would be very, very sad to destroy the embryos, but what else could you do? Sofia obviously got out of a toxic situation. Why would she ever want to bring a child into that? And what if the first implanted embryo resulted in a child? Do you keep going with the rest to see how many you can “grow?”
Agreed. If he truly believed this was a baby at feetilization, why has he tortured it by leaving it on ice? Ugh
Why do people put themselves in these situations without having every possible “What if” planned out?
I was wondering the exact same thing. And with their resources, you’d think they’d hire additional professionals to cover every scenario they couldn’t think of themselves.
Nick wants to save the embryos and do what with them? Implant them in a surrogate then hit Sofia up for child support?
Undoubtedly
That was my first thought, that this was about publicity and ultimately money.
I call bullshit on this story. There is no way to know the sex of the embryos. I’ve done IVF. It’s simply not possible. Most embryos are only 5-10 cells at the point of freezing.
Not if a lab “spun” the sperm and selected certain “candidates.”
I was wondering why they’re referred to specifically as the “Female Embryos.” Are there male ones he doesn’t care to preserve?
Sorry, for Soapboxpudding: Hi, yes we do have ways of knowing the sex. You could do PGS (old technology) or CCS- complete chromosomal screening. 90% of my patients choose to do this. 70% chance of holding a baby in 9 months with a tested, chromosomal normal embryo.
@Soapbox pudding: Sorry, my comment showed up below. we use CCS to screen embryos for chromosomal abnormalities and you can even test for genetic diseases wth PGD. You find out the sex incidentally with either test.
It’s possible to select the sperm to use. You can separate male and female sperm by centrifuging the semen since female sperm is heavier due to the X-chromosome being a lot bigger than the Y-chromosome. If they did that before the IVF they would know the sex of the embryos.
That is so creepy. Designer children like the movie Gattaca. It feels very discriminatory and wrong to sex-select when your goal is to have a baby.
Greyson –
I guess if there are some sort of hereditary issues that affect say, the males (x linked?) in your family, and you really want a kid, I don’t think it’s awful to go ahead and do this. There can be reasons outside of ‘but I really want to buy dresses!”
Erinn –
Good point! I don’t think it’s creepy if you’re carriers for sex-specific inheritable diseases.
The ‘but I really want to buy dresses!’ folks are the ones I find creepy. In India some well off parents have been using technology to determine sex of the baby early and abort upon finding they are having a girl. It’s very disconcerting! (Not to mention, it increases sex ratios disparities of the population — the affects of which will be felt for decades to come.)
@ greyson
my husband and I have talked about this. I’m neutral on having a kid, but he would really like to have a son so he can be the dad he never had in his life. I’m 39 so I don’t how much fertility I have left and tbh, I only want one child at most. And we don’t really have time (as in, I hear there are more chances of abnormalities the older the woman is) to keep having kids, hoping a son will pop out. So I would be open to selecting the sex of our child if we could. I understand the concerns of other people regarding this, though, but in our case, it’s not like we would abort a baby because it’s the wrong sex. I would just prefer to choose since I’m getting older and time is not on my side.
youre wrong about this, around 10% of IVF in the US is done on a gender selection basis (it’s called “family balancing” which sounds more palatable) it’s illegal in most countries except in cases where there are genetic problems that will only effect one gender.
I’m glad that Sofia is no longer with him. He sounds like an abuser, at the very least emotional abuse if not physical. If memory serves he made a lot of cruel remarks about her while they were still together.
He also cheated on her constantly.
I am pretty hard-core pro-life from natural conception to natural death and usually refrain from commenting on these threads because that’s not the general trend around here and I don’t come here for that kind of discussion. However, it seems to me that someone who is so passionately pro-life as to sue for custody of the embryos for that reason would not have consented to IVF in the first place–unless possibly they planned to use all of the embryos and I can’t see Sofia agreeing to carrying/mothering multiples or going through the process many times, and even that would be stretching his beliefs.
Also, are there male embryos that he just isn’t interested in, or are there only females left at this point? So many questions! The whole situation is weird and sad.
Casi, I am hard-core pro-choice, and am in complete agreement with you on this. If you believe human life begins at fertilization, there is no ethical way for you to use IVF (even if all embryos created are transferred, it’s still ethically very iffy if you believe those are human lives, due to the inherent risks to the embryos of the IVF process) — this is one of the reasons the Catholic Church forbids the use of IVF by the faithful. While I 100% disagree with the premise and the position, the Catholic Church is being intellectually honest here, just like in their opposition to allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest.
My read on the “female embryos” thing is that they did preimplantation genetic screening of the embryos, and the sex of the surviving embryos, of which there are two, is known.
Not only he’s a douchebag, he’s even really selfish!
Because there’s no way he would have the child and not go after Sofia for money.
I’ve never dealt with fertility stuff, so I really don’t know and would like a serious explanation if anyone can offer it. Why freeze embryos? Is it somehow better, medically or scientifically, to freeze an embryo as opposed to just freezing eggs/storing sperm? I understand the point behind freezing eggs (or sperm), but it seems like a lot of headaches could be avoided if people just didn’t freeze embryos, then you don’t even have to get into the whole pro-choice/anti-choice thing. It seems like the inevitable solution to Sofia’s situation is that the embryos just remain in cryostorage forever, or until they are no longer viable, and in that case, wouldn’t the anti-choice people be mad anyway because they were “murdered”? Or is that just a “natural death”? I really, truly, do not understand all this stuff.
I did IUI and not IVF, so I’m not as knowledgeable as some, but from what I do understand, survival rates for frozen embryos are significantly higher than for frozen eggs, which is why many people choose to go that route. Also, it sounds like they already had gone as far as to attempt IVF with a gestational carrier but it was unsuccessful. They would have had to create embryos to implant in the surrogate and it is fairly likely that they would have created several embryos (since some will not survive the initial 3 or 5 days of growth/development, you would normally attempt to create as many as you have eggs) and these last 2 could have been remaining from that initial batch. If you are able to retrieve 6 eggs for example and 4 are successfully used to create embryos, you wouldn’t normally implant all 4 at once, so you would have some left frozen for future use.
I see. Thank you for that. If there’s a real issue of viability, it makes sense why people freeze embryos.
Wow seems like she really dodged a bullet there. Everything he’s doing fits with the idea that he’s jealous of her career.
Yeah, things seemed to really go south for them when she hit it big with Modern Family and all her other business deals. He clearly couldn’t handle her being more successful than him, and this is probably him trying to hurt her now that she’s moved on.
So yes, we can test for sex, to see if they’re are 23 pairs of chromosomes, and also for genetic disease like Tay-Sachs or cystic fibrosis. Yes, there is a sperm filtering technology that is not FDA approved and you have to go to Mexico to get. People freeze embryos all the time and it is becoming the norm to create the embryo and wait (delayed transfer) because studies show the pregnancy is healthier if you wait a month r so. To do the chromosomal testing you need to freeze embryos- you take the biopsy, freeze, then get results and choose a normal one for transfer. And yes they are alive, they are multicelled human embryos that grow and need food and can die. Very political to say they aren’t alive?
But they aren’t being fed and growing while frozen. They aren’t growing and maturing outside of uterus. They are combined cells without a host.
Yes their growth is suspended while frozen. That’s the point of freezing them. But once they are thawed they resume the activities of life, and the ones that do not are considered dead.
There are no activities of life without a host. You can thaw them, but they are not viable on their own.
Kiddo, I see what you’re saying- yes they have no future without being implanted. But even in the Petri dish they are most certainly alive. Not for too long, but for a period of days. I think the longest they can survive in the Petri dish is 7-8 days and then they fail without a mother. This isn’t an argument about abortion or whatever for me, just if a multicellular organism is alive during the period of time it is created by both a living sperm and living egg and how long it lives in the dish. Yes it cannot become a baby without a woman but it is certainly a living embryo.
@Jennifer A sperm is a living single-celled organism. It will die pretty quickly, with or without a host. A multi-celled thing is not necessarily “alive” if it has no motor skills or no brain. No heart. If it does not “breathe” or digest or change CO2 into O2 or vice versa. If has no function but to grow, but cannot outside of its host. That is like saying a tumor is alive. Tumors grow, but are they “alive”? Aren’t they more like “growths”? Careful.
This is insane. I seriously hope he loses this or at the very worst the company is forced to keep the embryos frozen, but they are never allowed to be used and implanted in someone. It’s insane to me that he can make a case out of this. I would be livid and so upset if an ex wanted to keep our frozen embryos. I would hate that he would potentially be able to have my child without my permission and against my will. Honestly if I had her kind of money I would pay somebody to break in there and destroy them or pay somebody that works there to do it. Screw this guy. He’s a grade a turd.
Now Nick is looking for child support forthe next eighteen years.
Otherwise why he want a child with a woman, that he claims, dresses too tacky for him.
Also he is missing being in the lime light, they had a massive fight in a night club in Miami, were Nick drag Sofia out of the club with a ripped blouse.
This douche wants to screw her over and hit her up for child support for the next 18 years. His excuse of “I am pro-life therefore I am suing you” reeks of bullsh*t to me.
What the hell kind of crap lawyers are these people/centers using? I would think it would be standard practice when doing the embryo freezing thing to have in writing what happens if the couple splits. These two thought about what to do in the event of their deaths, but not splitting up – – even though they split up on the regular?
And, yeah, methinks this has little to do with Nick wanting to be a father. More like control, sour grapes, and possibly posturing for future political moves.
The center should have had them sign a consent form that clearly stated what would happen to the embryos…I do t think he really has a case.
Let me see if I have this right.
Loeb supplies sperm that results in fertilized embryos.
At the same time, he’s in a relationship with the egg donor who is violent toward him. Who puts him in danger.
She’s a threat to him. So he fertilizes her eggs.
Am I missing something here?
Oh! It may be his demand that he call the shots, long after she split from him. To exact revenge.
Now THAT makes sense.
Given the control he’s trying to exert over her here, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some level of abuse in the relationship. It sounded toxic from both sides. Anti-choice legislation of stored eggs is a joke – the eggs aren’t viable in the traditional sense, and quite often in vitro requires destruction of non-viable progeny or actual abortion in rare cases where too many eggs fertilize in the womb. Basically, IVF is not your friend if you’re fiercely pro-life.
I am all for ethical examinations of pre-term life, but this hyperfocus on fetal life and not the reality of a child’s life beyond the womb is myopic and insulting to everyone involved. There are no hypothetical scenarios where his usage of these eggs would benefit anyone outside of a power play.
He’s still trying to control her.
Come on! he was abused, belittled by female egg donor, yet he still want her eggs? I can smell a rat miles away. He want the baby carrier implanted with embryo, then what? DNA to prove Sofia is the mother and have moral obligation to support the child .He will probably demand between 15 to 20k child support per month. She must pay school fees, health insurance and holiday for him and the child for next 18 years. What a douche.
I thought they were still friends. Not long ago he said how happy he is for her being with what’s his name.
I agree, vanity or money (or both) can be the only plausible explanation for his current behavior. But I just don’t understand how a professional medical office can possibly operate in such a way without having all of those bases covered when it comes to their contracts and patients/clients. Really? This situation has NEVER happened before? Or even considered beforehand? I know celebrities get to cut corners in many situations, but this one was just way too irresponsible.
Money is not an issue for him. The guy’s a billionaire and has way more money than Sophia. This is about control. He is bitter.
No he is not a Billionaire, his family’s money is not his.
Sofia was carrying his sorry ass.
@ Peggy
He runs his own successful company…the dude is loaded.
On one hand, yes those embryos are half his genetic material.
On the other hand, there’s nothing stopping him getting another woman pregnant, if he wants to be a father.
There’s zero reason to force Sophia to stay tied to this guy for life via a child if one or more of the embryos is brought to term. Since the parties involved have money, probably the fairest thing would be to leave the embryos frozen indefinitely. When Sophia dies of old age, then he can have sole control of the embryos.
This is a tough one. When they signed the contract why wasn’t there a section about what would be done with the embryos if they broke up? But think of it this way, I have never heard of a man being able to stop a woman from aborting a child, so this is similar in that regard. I think she will be able to destroy them without his consent. I’m not saying that’s right or fair though.
The contract with the clinic spells out who has the legal control over the embryos. It’s a standard clause that the couple must complete before the clinic does their thing.
When clinics like this started, there were enough cases like this one that involved the clinics in expensive legal action, one party suing the clinic itself to keep them from destroying embryos was pretty common, that it’s specifically covered in current contracts.
The suit tells me that she has the contractual right and he’s simply dragging personal business into court to make life difficult for her.
The correct term would be ‘pro-life’ rather than ‘anti-choice’. Just like one wouldn’t go around calling people who identify as pro-choice ‘anti-lifers’. See? It’s not that hard.
‘Anti-life’ would mean that they’re against birth just as ‘anti-choice’ means they’re against allowing a choice.
Pro-choice doesn’t mean you’re against birth.
If you’re pro-choice, that means you’re for giving women the choice between the two options of keeping the pregnancy or having an abortion.
Pro-life means you’re against women having a choice. You must have the baby. No choice to have an abortion. That’s why they’re also called ‘anti-choice.’
Women always have a choice anne_000. They have a choice not to do the one thing that has been proven to bring about a life.
always have a choice?
please elaborate.
True, Crumpet. I know that people will argue “What about rape??”, and I agree that rape is a special circumstance. But let’s be honest: most abortions have nothing to do with rape.
No, you can’t redefine the terms to suit yourself, and you can’t assume the tiny number of people who get media attention for screaming at women and trying to kill doctors represent everybody. I know plenty of people who want abortion to remain legal but believe it’s a very wrong choice. They just don’t want government making such a complicated decision for a woman. Believing abortion is wrong is not the same as believing it must be illegal, many things that are wrong should not be illegal. We need to drop the labels and recognize people have complex feelings about this.
Adopt the embryos…end of story. It’s becoming more and more common for people to adopt the leftover embryos after they have successfully had children. This is a great option for a lot of childless couples as it saves them a lot of money that is required for the usual in-vitro fertilization process and they can experience pregnancy process as well.
This way Ms. Vergara washes her hands and responsibility of the situation (and of Mr. Loeb) and Mr. Loeb can sleep at night knowing that the embryos weren’t destroyed. I don’t think he should be able to take possession of them and have them implanted into a surrogate just because of the entire situation (and if the embryos were successfully implanted, develop and are born…that’s a lot to put on someone about the origin and situation of their “beginning or conception”).
Or donate them. After five years of fertility issues, my husband & I conceived our daughters through embryo donation. I thank God every day for the selfless gift we were given.
There are vastly more unused / unwanted embryos left over from IVF every year than will ever, ever be adopted by infertile couples. Only a very small percentage of IVF patients are looking for a child which is not genetically related to either partner; most who go the “double donor” route do so because both partners have infertility issues which cannot be overcome through ART, and that does not describe most people pursuing IVF. This may eventually change over time, as donor conception becomes more widely understood and socially acceptable, but right now most embryos available for “adoption” will never be used.
“Nick is very emotionally invested in these female embryos because he’s pro-life and believes life begins at conception.”
I don’t understand how pro-lifers can reasonably argue that IVF doesn’t involve killing fertilized embryos at some point. There are going to those that die from failure to stay implanted and come to term or die during the thawing process. Even if all the implanted embryos take, some of them will have to come out or else you’ll have 2, 3, 4, or more babies in the same pregnancy.
If the judge rules that the eggs remain frozen, then I hope it’s Nick who’s stuck with the payments.
He’s totally FOS and probably making another grab for political life, with bonus power-play at Sofia.
Nope. I will always use the term “anti-choice” because choice is what lies at the heart of the debate for me.
Every woman I know is “pro-life” even if they believe in woman’s right to chose.
Bah! This was in response to Crumpet’s comment.
Well said.
Agreed 100%. Let’s not pussyfoot around the truth.
He’s a control freak and jealous. Full stop. I hope he NEVER has kids…and I don’t say that lightly.
The idea of frozen embryos Is bad from the start. A frozen human life…. Waiting to be implanted in a foreign body. I understand the want that people have to make children of their own, but at what point do we say we have gone too far? Nature should take its course and not everyone was meant to conceive.
And not everyone believes that a frozen embryo is already a human life.
Really? “Gone too far” How ominous.
The ‘nature takes its course’ argument usually only involves those who of course wouldn’t quietly and calmly die from cancer, refuse first aid with serenity, or shoo away a stranger attempting to save them. ‘Nature’ should only take its course with other people.
Nothing about this is ‘gone too far’ it’s the same consequence of selfish and abusive men that’s happened in history since the dawn of time. Find new things to be outraged about.
She doesn’t want the embryos and wants them destroyed, so what’s the problem with him getting them?
In situations where the guy doesn’t want a pregnancy to proceed but the woman does she is entitled to get child support if she goes ahead with the pregnancy. Why shouldn’t he have the same entitlement if he got a surrogate to carry the embryos to full term? Why is anyone even supposing he wants parental support anyway when he’s so rich? Thats just pure conjecture. She’s still got control over her own body and he’s not trying to make her go ahead with a pregnancy she doesn’t want.
Everyone is assuming he’s doing this to be a control freak- but she’s the one exerting control over biological material she couldn’t give a damn about otherwise.
I’m a bit disturbed that his allegations of physical abuse from his ex partner are so easily dismissed out of hand by a lot of people here, especially considering how most of us would not accept the same kind of expressions of doubt if a woman was claiming she was abused by a male partner.
So she was abusive and awful but he wants to raise her kids? Even though as a dude he can knock someone else up into his seventies? His so traditional and conservative that destroying the embryos is unthinkable (because God presumably) but IVF is fine? Maybe God didn’t want you to have kids Nick you total jerk.