Do orphaned embryos have legal rights?
Sitting in a stainless-steel vat of liquid nitrogen at Queen Victoria Medical Center in Melbourne, chilled to a crisp320° F, are 200 glass tubes, each holding a microscopic embryo. Just two to eight cells in size, they are babies in waiting, life on ice, kept for possible use by participants in the hospital's in-vitro fertilization (IVF) program. Last week hospital officials were stunned to learn that two of their charges could be heirs to a million-dollar fortune. The news set armchair ethicists around the world abuzz and forced Australian policymakers to ponder an area...