Khloé Kardashian said she “own[s]” a frozen embryo and would not need to tell ex-partner Tristan Thompson if she decided to use it, prompting renewed attention to who controls embryos after in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Newsweek reached out to Kardashian and Thompson's representatives via email for comment on Wednesday.
There is no single U.S. rule determining control of frozen embryos. According to family-building law firm Foster + Bloom, written disposition agreements and state law can determine who has decision-making authority, while disputes without clear agreements can end up in court.
Past cases show how consequential those agreements can become. In 2015, NBC News reported an Illinois appellate court sided with a woman who wanted to use embryos created with an ex-partner after finding that an earlier oral agreement allowed her to do so.
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Kardashian Says She Controls the Embryo
Kardashian, 42, discussed the embryo on the October 15 episode of The Kardashians while talking to her mother, Kris Jenner, about whether she could see herself having another child.
Her daughter True, 8, has taken a particular interest in the frozen embryo and named it “Tyla,” according to Kardashian.
“Here’s my thing. I own the embryo outright. Don’t even need to tell Tristan that this is happening,” Kardashian said of Thompson, with whom she shares True and son Tatum, 4. "When we broke up, I had him sign that I could have it."
She also explained that although she would personally like another daughter, her age and the demands of raising another child have made her uncertain about going ahead.
The remarks later drew criticism from anti-abortion organization Live Action, which argued in a post on X that the discussion illustrated what it described as the “commodification of children” in IVF.
Kardashian's comments, however, raise a separate legal issue: what does it actually mean to “own” a frozen embryo?
Who Legally Controls Frozen Embryos?
Unlike ownership of an ordinary piece of property, control of an embryo can involve reproductive rights, contracts and state-specific laws.
Foster + Bloom says decision-making authority generally belongs jointly to the intended parents who created embryos and is governed by written embryo disposition agreements. Those documents can address what will happen to remaining embryos if a couple separates or divorces, one person dies or becomes incapacitated or the intended parents finish building their family.
Such agreements can also set out whether embryos may eventually be donated or used for scientific research, among other possibilities. Courts across most states enforce written disposition agreements using contract law principles, according to the firm.
That makes the precise circumstances surrounding Kardashian's embryo important. The information publicly provided here does not establish what agreement Kardashian and Thompson signed when the embryo was created, so her statement alone cannot establish why she says she has unilateral authority.
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What Happens If Former Partners Disagree?
The situation becomes more complicated when two people who created embryos together later want different things.
According to Foster + Bloom, when there is no clear agreement, courts may consider factors including the parties' original intentions, their biological relationships to the embryos, their ability to achieve biological parenthood another way and their competing reasons for wanting to use or preserve them.
An Illinois case involving Karla Dunston and her former boyfriend Jacob Szafranski illustrates how those conflicts can play out.
Dunston had been diagnosed with lymphoma and created embryos before chemotherapy threatened her fertility. Szafranski provided sperm but later objected to her using the embryos after their relationship ended, arguing that doing so would violate his right not to procreate.
In 2015, an Illinois appellate court sided with Dunston. Although the pair had signed an informed consent form with the laboratory, NBC News reported that their agreement allowing Dunston to use the embryos was oral, stemming from a phone conversation after her cancer diagnosis. The appellate ruling agreed with a lower court's conclusion that the agreement permitted her to use them.
The dispute demonstrates why the word “ownership” can oversimplify the issue: courts may examine earlier agreements and the circumstances in which embryos were created rather than simply deciding which former partner possesses them.
State Law Can Produce Different Results
There is no uniform national approach, and in some states, a statute can override what former partners previously agreed would happen to their embryos.
Arizona provides a particularly striking example. Its 2018 law governing embryo disposition during divorce says courts must award in vitro embryos to the spouse who intends to allow them to develop to birth. Crucially, the statute says that even when the spouses have an existing agreement governing disposition of the embryos, the court must make the award according to the rules set out in the statute.
That means a prior disposition agreement, including an agreement reached through a fertility clinic, does not control the outcome when Arizona's statute applies. If both spouses want the embryos to develop to birth and both provided genetic material, the court must resolve the dispute in the way that provides the embryos the best chance of developing to birth.
The law also provides that the spouse who is not awarded the embryos has no parental responsibilities or rights involving a resulting child unless that person provided genetic material and consents in writing to becoming a parent.
Kardashian's choice of the word “own” therefore points to a much more complicated reality. For anyone with frozen embryos, the legally important questions are what was agreed when they were created, what any subsequent agreement says and which state's law applies.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Emma Lee-Sang