After seven years, the legal battle over Sofia Vergara's frozen embryos is finally over.
The battle of exes ended on Monday, March 29, after years of legal back-and-forth between Vergara and Nick Loeb.
The couple ended their engagement in 2014, but had undergone in vitro fertilization the previous year, producing frozen embryos while they were still a couple. Since then, Loeb has kept Vergara in an ongoing custody battle, trying to reclaim the frozen embryos he created with the actress.
"It's sad that Sofia, a devout Catholic, intentionally creates babies just to kill them," Nick Loeb said in a statement after losing his final appeal.
Because, of course, when it comes to determining the rights of women, their bodies and their reproduction, who better to consult than the Catholic Church?
In 2017, after marrying Joe Manganiello, Vergara filed paperwork to prevent Loeb from using the embryos without her consent.
Loeb had already been denied full custody of the embryos the previous year, but relentlessly made his case increasingly public, taking his attempts to Louisiana courts.
He named the pre-embryos “Emma” and “Isabella” and created trusts for both.
By doing so, he also violated his and Vergara's original contract, which explicitly states that he has no right to attempt to terminate the embryos without her consent.
That violation would later be to Loeb's detriment, as courts this week ruled against his plan to implant the embryos into a surrogate, finding that Loeb would not be able to use them with Vergara's written consent.
The case, and others like it, have added a whole new dimension to the “right to life” debate, much of which is rooted in Christian beliefs.
Loeb's comments and court efforts reveal how this belief system is consistently weaponized against women, even in cases where modern science prevails.
Loeb is playing on Catholic guilt by using Vergara's beliefs against it.
Taking up arms against someone's religious beliefs seems particularly ironic in this context.
The Catholic Church has never been a particularly welcoming place for women who become mothers against their will.
Using their teachings in this way only adds another layer to the long history of women's oppression in the church.
Vergara's choice to interpret Catholicism in his own way without subscribing to all his teaching on the right to life is a choice that many Christians can relate to and it is not something that Loeb or who whatever else has authority to speak.
Even at the highest levels of the Catholic Church, IVF is condemned and criticized, which means that the place of the Church in this debate is already inappropriate.
Loeb used a pro-life stance to exert control over Vergara.
If Loeb wants to choose which of the church's teachings to follow, then he should allow Vergara to do the same.
This is not the first time that Loeb has tried to manipulate Vergara by using her religious or cultural identity against her. Loeb has previously described her as "classless" for speaking Spanish in front of him, betraying a disinterest in her background and values when they don't directly benefit her.
Under the guise of being pro-life, Loeb cast judgments on Vergara from a high moral standard. But his protests against Vergara are also inconsistent with his past actions.
The courts heard in 2016 that two of Loeb's exes had abortions during their relationship with him. Loeb maintained that these were performed against his will and declined to name any of the women involved.
He did it on the pretext that a woman has a right to privacy, which is a valid argument. But that right somehow never applied to Vergara when he spoke publicly about their legal battle in a New York Times article.
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This stance on her ex's autonomy was also not consistent with her desire to make Vergara the mother of her children against her will.
If Loeb was so upset by his ex's decisions to go through with an abortion without her consent, then he already knows what it feels like to have your choice taken away.
Yet he always tried to do the same with Vergara.
The businessman clearly knows all the avenues one can take to become a parent, but seems irrevocably fixated on this one despite initially agreeing that both parties had to consent in 2014.
Loeb believes the decision is part of a larger conspiracy, saying in his statement, “The judge was clearly influenced by Hollywood.”
He then, without irony, promoted his next film, Roe vs. Wade, which he claims exposes this plot.
As IVF becomes an increasingly popular choice for families, cases like this reveal how the law is lagging behind and failing to protect the parties involved.
Legislation varies from state to state and often changes on a case-by-case basis, making it increasingly difficult to determine rights and wrongs.
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Catch her covering all things social justice, news and entertainment.
