Karla Dunston, of Chicago, was diagnosed with lymphoma four years ago. Knowing chemotherapy would make her infertile, she had embryos frozen before treatment.
Her then-boyfriend, Jacob Szafranski, provided the sperm. But they broke up a year later and Szafranski changed his mind, leading to a lengthy court battle.
A Cook County judge has now awarded custody of the embryos to Dunston, stating Dunston’s “desire to have a biological child in the face of the impossibility of having one without using the embryos outweighs” Szafranski’s privacy concerns.
Szafranski says he will appeal.