Davis v. Davis

In Davis v. Davis, 842 S.W.2d 588, 594 (Tenn. 1992), the divorcing parties each sought custody of cryopreserved pre-embryos created during the marriage. 842 S.W.2d at 594. The Tennessee Supreme Court not only refused to equate cryopreserved pre-embryos with human beings (alive or deceased), it expressly noted that they were not persons for purposes of Tennessee's wrongful death statutes but occupied "an interim category" between persons and human tissue. Id. at 594, 596-98.