A local court in Jiangsu Province on Wednesday ruled that two pairs of parents would receive joint custody of four frozen embryos left by their deceased only children, the first time in China that parents have inherited frozen embryos belonging to their deceased children.
The People's Intermediate Court in Wuxi ruled in a second trial that the four parents would share custody and disposal rights for the frozen embryos left by Shen Jie and his wife, Liu Xi, who both died in a car crash last year.
The court based its ruling on the need to protect the interests of both sets of parents, as the embryos represent the only way to extend their family bloodlines.
Previously, Shen's parents had sued Liu's parents claiming sole disposal rights for the embryos. A court in Yixing ruled in May that embryos could not be inherited or transferred, while the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, a court-assigned third party that preserved the embryos, refused to transfer them on the grounds that surrogacy, the only way that the embryos could be born, is banned by current Chinese health policies.
The presiding judge in the Wuxi court said that even if health authorities ban the trading, gifting or surrogacy of embryos by medical professionals, this does not deprive the parents of their disposal rights.
Although embryos cannot be defined as life or property according to current Chinese law, the court saw them as more than simple property, and took steps to provide relief to the families in a show of the court's respect for life, said Liu Ye, an experienced medical lawyer.
The landmark case will set a precedent for similar cases in the future, Liu said.
Yang Zhizhu, an associate professor of civil law with the China Youth University of Political Studies, echoed Liu, but pointed out that China has yet to enact a law prohibiting or allowing surrogacy.
"The two families will not resort to surrogacy. They just keep the frozen embryos in the hospital and if policy changes, they will still have chance to continue the family legacy," Guo Xiaobing, the lawyer for Shen's parents, told the Global Times.