Citing Slavery Law in Embryo Case 'Reprehensible,' Professor Ikemoto Tells N.Y. Times

Professor Lisa Ikemoto talked to the New York Times for a March 16 story about a Virginia judge who cited an 1849 slavery law in ruling that frozen embryos can be considered property.

“It is logically possible that he could treat it as a distribution of property, but he doesn’t have to go into the slave law. So that was a jump,” Ikemoto told the Times. “In a sense, he is reviving the use of a law that treated humans as property, in the 21st century. It is reprehensible and offensive.”

Lisa Ikemoto, Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law, has written extensively on genetic and reproductive technology, the regulation of fertility and pregnancy, and race and gender disparities in health care. Her current work examines emerging issues in regenerative medicine, including stem cell research, and the human tissues market.