Frozen Embryos and the Anti-Abortion Movement

New York Times (Jan. 19, 2016): Anti-Abortion Groups Join Forces Over Frozen Embryos, by Tamar Lewin:

Disputes by divorcing couples over frozen embryos are nothing new.  In the past they have been decided in favor of the party who does not want to procreate or in accordance with any contracts the couple executed to control their disposition.  But a new litigation strategy is for the party seeking to have children with the embryos without the consent of the other to hire counsel better known for their anti-choice stance in the abortion wars.  The legal theory these lawyers expound is that an embryo has a fundamental interest in being born, ergo, that the party who wishes to procreate should be allowed to do so.  The strategy fits nicely within the "personhood" theory which holds that an embryo is a person at the moment of conception.  Indeed, counsel in an ongoing appeal in a frozen-embryo dispute in Missouri cite the Missouri law that life begins at conception.  Of course a court will probably not find the existence of "human life" to be synonymous with the existence of a "human person," if only to adhere with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, which remains the law of the land.