Conflicted Custody

TO MOST WOMEN'S RIGHTS ADVOCATES, THE DEBATE over abortion is about a woman's right to control her reproduction. But who decides in the case of an embryo conceived outside her body? In a groundbreaking decision, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court ruling that gives a man the right not to become a father against his wishes. Like thousands of young couples unable to conceive a child naturally, Junior and Mary Sue Davis had turned to test-tube fertilization. But when the couple divorced and couldn't agree who should control seven fertilized embryos they had frozen and stored in a Tennessee clinic, the Davises wound up in the Supreme Court. Junior Davis had requested that the embryos be destroyed, asserting his own "reproductive rights." His ex-wife claimed a right to her "offspring." In refusing Mary Sue Davis' appeal to implant the embryos in her womb, the court decided that Junior Davis' right not to become a parent outweighed his ex-wife's claim. The Justices upheld a lower court's ruling that in such cases "procreational autonomy" gives men as well as women an overriding right not to become parents. What effect this will have on the national abortion debate is unclear, but for the Davises it means they can now get on with their lives.