A Couple Breaks Up. Who Gets Custody of Their Embryos?

一对情侣分手。胚胎的抚养权归谁?

The Daily

2026-09-10

43 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

As more people in the United States use I.V.F. to have children, embryos are being stored in fertility clinics across the country. It raises the question: What should happen to those embryos if a couple breaks up? Caroline Kitchener, who covers families for The New York Times, tells the story of Erin Millender, who took a custody battle over frozen embryos to court after her husband revoked his consent to use them. Guest: Caroline Kitchener, a New York Times reporter, writing about the American family. Background reading:  They started I.V.F., and then split. Now who gets custody of the embryos?Photo: Kim Raff for The New York Times For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium.

  • Hi, I'm Haley Bailey.

  • With YouTube Premium, I get ad-free videos, offline downloads, background play, and so much more.

  • So try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium.

  • Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime.

  • From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.

  • In recent years, more and more Americans have been turning to IVF to have children,

  • which means more and more embryos are being stored in fertility clinics all over the country.

  • And that has made one question increasingly urgent.

  • What should happen to those embryos if a couple breaks up?

  • In much of the country, the legal system has no clear answer to that question.

  • Nor does it have clear rules for weighing one person's desire to become a parent against another person's desire not to.

  • Today, my colleague Caroline Kitchener tells us the story of one couple

  • that found themselves caught in this exact limbo.

  • Thursday, September 10. Caroline, you recently chronicled this really heart-wrenching fight over embryos

  • that this one couple had made when they were still together.

  • And the fight and how it unfolded touched on all kinds of issues

  • that really felt very much of our time, like modern fertility treatments, the question of when life begins,

  • the shape of what a family looks like in our day and age.

  • So tell us how all of that fits into what you cover and how you came to this story.