(CNN) — Sofia Vergara’s ex-fiancé says he has a firm reason for suing her over a pair of frozen female embryos from their relationship.
“Well, I’ve always believed that life begins at conception,” Nick Loeb told CNN’s “New Day.” “How else would I define what two embryos are that happen to be female? I can’t say these are female property. These are lives. And they’re on a journey and a pathway to being born.”
Loeb and the 42-year-old “Modern Family” star split in May 2014. The businessman is now suing Vergara in Los Angeles to prevent her from destroying their two embryos reportedly conceived through in vitro fertilization in November 2013.
According to Loeb, he and Vergara planned to use a surrogate to become parents. He told CNN that there were two failed attempts to implant embryos into a surrogate before the now-contested embryos were created. He told CNN he has always wanted to be a father and takes the embryos’ existence very seriously.
“I didn’t create lives lightly. This was very, very important to me,” Loeb said. “To the point where, when we created these lives and we put them into a surrogate, we were coming up with names for our children. And so, to do anything besides continue their journey towards life and birth to me is tantamount to destruction.”
Vergara is the mother of an adult son from a previous relationship and is currently engaged to “True Blood” and “Magic Mike” star Joe Manganiello.
The Colombian-born actress told Amy Robach in an interview that aired Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that “I really want to make this, like, the last time I talk about it because I don’t think it’s fair.”
“I’ve been working very hard for 20 years to get to this point where I am, enjoying my movie,” she said. “I promote all my movies, all my work, but I don’t like promoting my private life and I don’t understand why this person…I don’t want to allow this person to take more advantage of my career and try to promote himself and get press for this.”
Loeb said that for him, if the embryos are destroyed “I’ll be torn apart, it’ll be horrible.”
The-CNN-Wire
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