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The court upheld a decision by the state Workers' Compensation Commission that denied dependency benefits to the child,
who was conceived through in vitro fertilization and implanted in his mother's womb after his father's death.
The mother and her husband were participating in an in vitro fertilization program at the University of Arkansas for
Medical Sciences in June 2001 when four embryos that had been created using the couple's eggs and sperm were frozen for
preservation.
The father was electrocuted in July 2001 while on the job. On June 26, 2002, two of the frozen embryos were implanted in
his widow's uterus, and she gave birth to a baby boy in March 2003.
The Workers' Compensation Commission later found the child was not entitled to death benefits as a dependent of the
woman's husband. On appeal, the mother argued although her child was a frozen embryo when his father died, he was "a
person" at the time and was financially dependent on his parents, who "had to pay UAMS a fee to store the fertilized
embryos."
The appeals court declined Wednesday to say whether the woman's child was a person as a frozen embryo, but it said that,
even assuming he was a person, he was not a dependent as defined under an Arkansas statute.
The court said it has interpreted the statute as applying to a person who receives support in the form of food, clothes,
transportation, housing, utilities, furniture and toys.
"Though storage fees are akin to housing, we decline to adopt this creative reading of the statute," Judge Larry Vaught
wrote.
The boy's mother claimed denying dependency benefits to her son violated his constitutional rights of due process and
equal protection. She argued the method of her son's conception "created a whole new class of children who will be
deprived of certain rights solely because they were not conceived and born in a 'normal' or 'accepted' manner."
The Court of Appeals said it would not address that argument because the woman did not raise it with the Workers'
Compensation Commission.
In a related case, the child's mother is suing the Social Security Administration in federal court over its denial of
child insurance benefits for her son. The Social Security Commission said the child was not entitled to the benefits
because, in the absence of a will, he was not his father's legal heir.
In response to a question from the judge in that case, the Arkansas Supreme Court said in an advisory opinion in January
that a child conceived through in vitro fertilization but implanted in his mother's womb after his father's death is
not automatically considered his father's heir under Arkansas' inheritance laws.
But the Supreme Court added, "We strongly encourage the General Assembly to revisit the intestacy succession statutes
to address the issues involved in the instant case and those that have not but will likely evolve."
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LITTLE ROCK -- A child born nearly two years after his father's death cannot be considered a dependent of his father for
purposes of collecting death benefits, the Arkansas Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.