The Bioethics of ARTs in Inheritance Law

At the heart of the reproductive technologies legal debate lies the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the principles of constitutional laws, and individual citizens’ rights of procreation. Procreative rights do not end with family planning, either. Example is the right to cryopreservation (cryogenic freezing); one of the latest IVF scientific procedures which enables storage and preservation of reproductive materials for future use or sale. IVF cryopreservation has a proven success rate. The question is, how such ARTs intended for posthumous reproduction are implicated within the inheritance laws U.S. federal and state laws of estate guided by rules of intestacy.

It is argued federal preemption of rules applying to ARTs more generally, is nevertheless subject separate policy treatment within state statutory provisions of estate law. In other words, where rules of intestacy are interpreted and defined by rules of estate within individual state laws, those provisions dictate beneficiary rights of entitlement to asset distribution and other enrichment where probate courts are concerned. To this end, it is suggested rules covering ARTs enacted at the state level will inevitably determine rule application to matters of estate.

What were once considered incontestable claims of inheritance tied to maternal birth, with IVFs and other ARTs, the eligibility of born children as direct heirs is now subject to reinterpretation. In some cases, it is interpreted ownership of frozen reproductive materials (i.e., sperm, ovum (egg), or embryos) is manifest right to family relations of a child born from those materials. From the point-of-view of the child, however, estate entitlements may be contested on basis of customary rules of birth right. Should revision take place within the law to comprehensively reform the rights of individuals from the standpoint of bioethics, radical alteration of existing estate and trust distribution laws may be the outcome.