Who Owns Your Frozen Embryo? Promises and Pitfalls of Emerging Reproductive Options Robyn Shapiro is a lawyer in Milwaukee specializing in reproductive issues. Our enhanced ability to freeze sperm, embryos and now ova, and then to thaw them without destroying their biological potential, has offered a number of new reproductive options to fertile and infertile individuals. In fact, cryo-preservation (freezing) of embryos is now a standard practice at in vitro fertilization (IVF) programs because it enhances both the safety and the efficiency of IVF. Standard IVF treatment involves the surgical removal of eggs from a woman's ovaries, extracorporeal fertilization, and then placement in the uterus. The woman's ovaries are hormonally stimulated to produce multiple eggs so that more than the one egg naturally produced during a monthly cycle can be retrieved. Typically, many more eggs are retrieved than can be safely fertilized and implanted in the uterus at one time. Cryopreservation