In the wake of a Central Florida couple suing a Longwood fertility clinic for implanting the wrong embryo, legal experts say Florida’s outdated laws on the subject do little to prevent such “heartbreaking” mixups from occurring, or help handle them when they do. “There’s not a lot of Florida law for you all to reach a resolution,” Circuit Judge Margaret Schreiber told the couple and lawyers at the end of a court hearing last month. There were more than 95,000 in vitro fertilization births in the United States in 2023, according to the most recent data provided by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, or ASRM. In vitro fertilizations accounted for nearly 3% of all births in the United States that year. But experts said fertility clinics are not held to the same standards and regulations as other areas of medicine. Many still rely on manual oversight, rather than high-tech systems. “[They’re] looking at it with human eyes,” said Ponte Vedra Beach attorney Robert Travieso, who specializes in medical malpractice cases, regarding the fertilization of eggs and storing the embryos before implant. “You’re just exposing it to more risks of human error occurring. A lot of thi
