02/03/2026
A couple in Florida has sued an in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic after it was discovered that the baby the mother gave birth to had no genetic relation to the couple. Experts say the case highlights the ongoing lack of regulation governing the $5 billion IVF industry and the human dignity violations inherent in the practice.
Tiffany Score and Steven Mills allege in their lawsuit that Score’s uterus was implanted by another patient’s embryo in April 2025 by reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Milton McNichol at the IVF Life, Inc. fertility clinic in Orlando. The couple had previously stored three viable embryos at the facility in 2020. When the couple gave birth to their “beautiful, healthy female child” in December 2025, it was obvious that the baby was a “non-Caucasian child,” unlike the couple. Genetic testing later confirmed that the baby girl had “no genetic relationship” to either Score or Mills.
In January, the couple’s attorney, John Scarola, sent a letter to the clinic “demanding it unite the baby ‘with her genetic parents’ and explain what happened to his clients’ embryos.” As reported by the New York Post, the couple “also fear another person may have been implanted with their embryo and could be pregnant with or raising their child.” In the meantime, the lawsuit notes, Score and Mills formed an “intensely strong emotional bond” with the baby during pregnancy and “have fallen in love with this child.” While the couple says they are willing to raise the child as their own, they still feel obliged to return the baby to her biological parents if they come forward.
The mix-up occurred within an IVF industry that is largely unregulated in the U.S. Currently, there are no legal limits on how many embryos a couple can produce, which has resulted in approximately 1.5 million embryos currently being frozen and stored in liquid nitrogen tanks indefinitely. In addition, it is estimated that 50% of all embryos created in labs for IVF purposes are discarded. With approximately four million being created in the U.S. annually, this means that about two million embryos are killed per year in the U.S. IVF companies now allow parents to pick the s*x, hair color, and eye color (as well as predictions about height, IQ, and disease risk) based on the embryos they produce and discard the rest.
As for Score and Mills’s misplaced embryos and the birth of their unrelated baby, their lawsuit asks for emergency court action “to force the clinic to alert all affected patients, pay for widespread genetic testing, and disclose whether other families may have been impacted by the embryo mix-up.”
But during an emergency hearing held last week, Judge Margaret Schreiber observed that there is little legal precedent in which to allow the case to move forward. “There’s not a lot of Florida law for you all to reach a resolution that will provide the answers that the plaintiffs in this case are seeking, and the protections that the defendants are wanting to ensure remain in place for their clients,” she noted.
Experts like Mary Szoch, who serves as director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, say that IVF unnecessarily drags couples through avoidable heartache and moral quandaries.
“The story of Tiffany Score and Steven Mills suing an IVF business because IVF doctors wrongly implanted someone else’s embryo in her body, resulting in her giving birth to someone else’s child, is horrific,” she told The Washington Stand. “Tiffany and Steven must be constantly worrying that someone — the child’s biological parents — will one day ask for the girl that they have loved and cared for back, and they must also be wondering where their children are.”
“This is one of the major issues with the IVF industry,” Szoch continued. “Once a third party is involved in the procreation of children, there is no way to know that the third party is acting with as much love and care as parents would. How often do ‘mix-ups’ happen? If biological parents happen to locate their son or daughter years down the road when the child is six or seven, do the biological parents still have the right to demand their child back? How often do IVF businesses just use someone else’s s***m or eggs because it’s more profitable to continue the IVF process?”
These are concerns that Dr. David Prentice, a bioethicist and president of the newly launched Science Alliance for Life and Technology (SALT), echoed on Monday’s “Washington Watch.” “IVF itself is a complicated situation,” he told guest host Jody Hice. “First, we’re very thankful this little girl is alive. She’s a survivor. Because with IVF, at most, about 10% of the embryos that are created during the IVF procedure ever make it to live birth. And so, we celebrate the fact that she’s alive. But it’s really a business. It’s an industry. It’s not so much a medical practice as a way to make a lot of embryos, a lot of human beings, and then try to get them to the point of birth, but for an exorbitant price.”
He added, “And she’s also a survivor [because of] the fact that she was frozen as an embryo and then thawed out, transferred to the mother’s womb, and gestated to birth, because up to half of the little ones who are frozen don’t survive that thawing process. So yes,” Prentice said somberly, “this industry is pretty much unregulated. They make a lot of claims about how they will produce a child for these infertile couples, but then they really don’t follow any standard medical practice. … And it really needs a lot of scrutiny and oversight.”
“In an industry where people are legally considered property, offenses against the dignity of the human person automatically take place,” Szoch concluded. “Let’s pray for the day when the dignity of every person is respected, and the IVF industry is held accountable for preying on the good and Godly desire of parents to have children.”
As Szoch and other experts have pointed out, natural conception alternatives to IVF known as restorative reproductive medicine like NaPro, FEMM, and the Billings Ovulation Method are widely available, which look for and treat the underlying causes of infertility.
𝑊𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝐷𝑎𝑛 𝐻𝑎𝑟𝑡. 𝑃𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑎𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑜𝑛 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑.
