c. 1999 Religion News Service

MOBILE, Ala. _ The Roman Catholic Church here has thrown itself into a custody case that may take the church’s pro-life stance into new legal territory _ the protection of fertilized eggs a woman wants to keep but her former husband wants destroyed.

The Catholic Charities organization of the Archdiocese of Mobile announced Thursday it has contributed $2,000 toward the legal costs of the Jacksonville, Fla., woman’s court battle to retrieve zygotes stored in a University of Michigan cryogenic lab.

“They are not just things. … They have souls,” Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb said of the fertilized eggs.

Deborah Cahill and Patrick D. Cahill of Saraland, Ala., married in 1993 in Las Vegas. Deborah Cahill was infertile. In 1995 doctors stimulated her ovaries and implanted her husband’s sperm into her fallopian tubes, fertilizing six eggs.

Three zygotes immediately were removed and frozen. Deborah Cahill carried triplets, who were born prematurely; one died immediately and a girl lived only nine months. A boy, Connor, survived. In 1998 the couple divorced.

Mobile County Circuit Judge Rosemary deJuan Chambers ruled in November that neither Deborah Cahill nor her ex-husband could have custody of the cells that remained after her fertilization procedure. The ruling was seen as a victory for 37-year-old Patrick Cahill, who wants the eggs destroyed.

Deborah Cahill, 43, said in August she wanted to be impregnated with the frozen zygotes, or cells, resulting from the union of a sperm and an ovum, so Connor could have playmates.”There’s no way I want her having my children. I certainly don’t trust her to run off with my cells,”Patrick Cahill told the court in August.

He said Thursday he recently had been awarded custody of 3-year-old Connor. At this time, he said, Deborah Cahill does not have visitation rights.

Deborah Cahill could not be reached for comment Thursday. Her attorney, Lawrence J. Hallett Jr. of Mobile, said he has been working on the case pro bono, but the money from Catholic Charities will help defray expenses.

Hallett said he talked to Lipscomb about the case while it was still pending and asked the archbishop if he knew of any organizations that might help cover costs. Lipscomb, he said, suggested Catholic Charities.

“The financial assistance is almost necessary,” Hallett said. “Quite frankly, it’s a help to me to know that Catholic Charities thinks that our position is correct morally and legally. It’s a psychological boost for our position.”

Patrick Cahill disagreed.”Catholic Charities basically had their money stolen from them,” he said when told of the donation.

Hallett said he plans to file an appeal of Chambers’ decision within the coming week.

“I hope that it will go in the right direction,” Lipscomb said. “The appeal has to take place so that you don’t let it go by default.”

The Rev. Paul Zoghby, director of the Catholic Charities Appeal, said the donation to Hallett’s work is simply an “adjunct” to the pro-life counseling that the agency already supports.

The work is “pro-life counseling with a counselor _ a lawyer,” Zoghby said.

Pope John Paul II, who is expected to arrive in the United States for a brief visit to St. Louis on Tuesday, has denounced in vitro fertilization and hormonal treatments on post-menopausal women and has called for an end to the production of frozen embryos, equating their destruction to abortion.

“It’s really new ground in the law,” said Hallett, who does not expect a response from Mobile courts for months.

DEA END CAMPBELL