Anna Louie Sussman

OPINION   Are Embryos Property? Human Life? Neither? The Embryo Question is a three-part series about the cluster of cells at the crossroads of science, ethics and the law. Read the introduction. Between divorce cases and I.V.F. disputes, the frozen embryos vials like these will hold are increasingly caught in legal limbo. By Anna Louie Sussman / Visuals by Dru Donovan Before fertility patients begin the long journey through hormone treatments, egg retrieval, fertilization and — hopefully, if everything goes well — a baby, there’s the paperwork. As a first order of business, would-be parents are typically presented with a form that requires them to choose the fate of embryos they do not use in the course of building their families. Three couples — the LePages, the Fondes and the Aysennes — undergoing treatments from 2013 to 2016 at the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Mobile, Ala., filled out such contracts. The clinic later said that one family chose to donate any remaining embryos to scientific research, another decided to destroy any embryos that were