A former couple from Michigan are locked in a legal battle over the fate of 10 frozen embryos, which the woman wants to use to cure their daughter’s sickle cell disease against her ex-boyfriend’s wishes.
Gloria Karungi believes if she can bear another child with one of the embryos, bone marrow cells from the umbilical cord of her ailing daughter’s healthy sibling could save the seven-year-old.
But the girl’s biological father, Ronaldlee Ejalu, must give his consent, according to a contract with an in vitro fertilization clinic, and he’s not interested. Karungi and Ejalu never married and broke up in 2013.
Frozen: Gloria Karungi and Ronaldlee Ejalu are locked in a legal battle over the control of their 10 frozen embryos, which the woman wants to use to try and save her sick daughter
Even though they were no longer in a romantic relationship, in 2015 the parents entered into an agreement with an in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic for the preservation of their embryos, according to court documents.
Karungi’s lawyer has filed a motion seeking to appoint a guardian over the embryos while the case is winding its way through the court system.
Oakland County Judge Lisa Langton last year said she didn’t have the authority to wade into the embryo dispute; she was simply determining financial support and parenting time for the couple’s daughter.
But the Michigan appeals court sent the case back to Langton for more work, including an evidentiary hearing if necessary.
Karungi ‘wants to cure her daughter and is seeking the embryos to that end. … Without the embryos coming to term, that child has no ability to be cured,’ the woman’s attorney, Dan Marsh, said in a court filing.
Ejalu’s lawyer, Dan Weberman, said he will argue again that a Family Division judge has no role in what’s basically a contract dispute.
He also said it is misleading for Karungi to claim that cells from a sibling are the only cure the seven-year-old’s genetic blood disorder.
‘They want to paint a picture like she’s on her death bed,’ Weberman told The Associated Press. ‘She’s in school. She’s a happy girl. She gets treatment once a month.’
Ejalu no longer believes that using frozen embryos is a good idea.
‘He doesn’t feel ethically that a life should be created for human tissue harvesting. That’s somewhat mind-boggling,’ Weberman said.
Under orders from the appeals court, Langton on June 20 again will hear arguments on whether she has jurisdiction over contested property held by unmarried parties.
But in the meantime, the judge has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday on Karungi’s request to have a lawyer appointed as guardian over the embryos.
Karungi’s legal team believes it got a boost in April when the state Supreme Court declined to intervene at this stage of the case. Justice Bridget McCormack added her own postscript to the one-sentence order, saying Langton shouldn’t sidestep ‘whether frozen embryos are persons subject to a custody determination.’
No other justice joined her remarks. Weberman said they were ‘gratuitous and irrelevant.’