Would-be grandparents fight for right to children’s frozen embryos

Two older couples who were fighting over four frozen embryos left by their deceased children have found that they are victims of incomplete laws and now have joined together in a new battle.

The two families turned on each other after Shen Xinnan, 52, filed a lawsuit against his daughter-in-law's parents in January. That was seven months after Shen Jie and his wife, Liu Xi, died in a car crash.

The young infertile couple had prepared four frozen embryos, the Beijing News reported on Monday. The four bereaved parents were vying for the embryos, kept in the Gulou Hospital in Nanjing, capital of eastern China's Jiangsu Province.

Neither side was compromising. Since the court accepted the case, the two families stopped meeting each other but in occasional phone calls, were shouting, "The embryos belong to us," according to the report.

Last Thursday, the People's Court in the province's city of Yixing said neither couple had the right of inheritance. Zheng Zhelan, lawyer for the hospital, said in court that current law does not specify who gets rights to frozen embryos. The embryos are difficult to identify because they are considered neither people nor items, according to the technical specification of human-assisted reproduction.

The state does have strict rules over dealing and keeping the frozen embryos, Zheng said, adding that the hospital can't give the frozen embryos to anyone.

The judge, Lu Yaqin, agreed with Zheng. Shen Jie and Liu Xi were not allowed to donate or trade their embryos, and Liu's only right was to have an embryo implanted in herself. Such a right couldn't be inherited, the judge said.

The court decision astonished Shen Xinnan.

"We have to put aside our disputes. We have to get the embryos first," he told his son's father-in-law, 53-year-old Liu Jinfa.

En route from the court to home, the four parents for the first time since January sat in one car. They decided to make peace and join hands to start a legal battle with Gulou Hospital.

They said they knew surrogacy was illegal in China. They just wanted to have another hospital in Shanghai or Beijing keep their "potential grandchildren" until the state relaxes the rules.

"We will make an appeal," Shen Xinnan said, describing the move as their only choice.

But admits he's pessimistic. "I feel just a glimmer of hope," he said.

If they finally lose the case, the hospital has the right to abandon "their last hope" because the frozen embryos have been kept in the hospital for more than one year and the date has expired, according to the contract.

Traditional Chinese beliefs dictate that families should have their own children so the parents can be looked after in their old age. Also, it is vital to have offspring to carry the family name and blood.

However, the family-planning policy that took effect in the late 1970s limited the majority of urban families to just one child. When these one-child families lose their grown-up children, the pain is unbearable.

Health authorities said at least 1 million Chinese families had lost their only child by 2010. The number was rising by about 76,000 every year.

"We are sacrificial lambs," said Liu Xi's mother, Hu Xingxian. "We should be taken care of by the nation."