Article On Why Planners Need To Know If Clients Have Had In-Vitro Fertilization

Igor A. Brusil (The Brusil Law Group, Ltd.) has recently published an article entitled, Fifty Shades of Gray Area, 30 Prob. & Prop. 58-63. Provided below is an excerpt from the article:

Whether estate planning clients have ever undergone or participated in an assisted reproduction treatment at an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic is probably not an issue that is frequently raised by their attorneys. Most clients probably would not volunteer this information; after all, infertility and the need to resort to assisted reproduction technologies are still rather sensitive and intimate subjects. Some IVF patients do not disclose this issue even to their family members, fearing their disapproval on moral or religious grounds. Most estate planning attorneys probably do not inquire about their client’s IVF treatments, because this information seemingly has nothing to do with the estate planning. Science has again outpaced the law, however, and in the context of assisted reproduction it has presented a question that most estate planning attorneys should address: how does one provide advice to and counsel an estate or testator who has cryopreserved embryos stored at an IVF clinic?