Colombian-born actress Sofía Vergara, best known for playing a trophy wife on the hit ABC sitcom “Modern Family,” recently made headlines when she revealed the reason for the dissolution of her marriage to fellow actor Joe Manganiello. She said it was because he wanted children, but at 51, she was feeling too old to welcome any new babies.
“My marriage broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids and I didn’t want to be an old mom,” the actress told Spanish newspaper El País, as The Daily Wire previously reported. “I feel it’s not fair to the baby. I respect whoever does it, but that’s not for me anymore.”
While Manganiello doesn’t have any children, Vergara does have a 32-year-old son, Manolo.
“I had a son at 19, who is now 32, and I’m ready to be a grandmother, not a mother. So, if love comes along, he has to come with [his own] children,” the “Griselda” star added.
“I’m almost in menopause; it’s the natural way of things,” Vergara went on. “When my son becomes a dad, let him bring the baby to me for a while and then I’ll give it back to him and go on with my life; that’s what I have to do.”
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Though the actress mentioned her adult son in the conversation about becoming a mom again, she has more children who were never mentioned at all. Vergara neglected to bring up unborn embryonic children she created with her ex-fiance, Nick Loeb, who she’s been battling for custody for years now. Loeb insists the children, which were created in 2013, should be born. But Vergara disagrees, preferring to keep the two embryos frozen “indefinitely.”
Vergara and Loeb were together for two years and during that time they went through IVF in an effort to have children. After failing to achieve pregnancy while using a surrogate gestational carrier, the couple was left with two embryos in storage.
The drama began after the former couple broke off their engagement in 2014. Both Vergara and Loeb signed an agreement saying that neither one could use the embryos without the written consent of the other. But later, Loeb argued that the contract did not lay out guidelines for what would happen if the couple broke up, which he saw as grounds for nullifying the agreement entirely.
Loeb’s first lawsuit for custody of the embryos was filed in California, but was later dropped when the judge demanded Loeb to provide names of former girlfriends who allegedly had abortions after Loeb got them pregnant, per The Daily Beast. Loeb later said at least one former girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes.
The frozen embryos were stored at a facility in California, but Loeb filed another lawsuit in Louisiana due to the couple having broken up in that state. That lawsuit, which was filed in 2016, named three plaintiffs: two embryos named Isabella and Emma, and James Charbonnet, a New Orleans resident who was identified as a trustee for the unborn children.
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This LA lawsuit also attempted to terminate Vergara’s parental rights over the embryos, claiming she had abandoned them at the cryopreservation facility in California. Loeb had intentionally chosen Louisiana because of their unique laws about embryos. A state law passed in 1986 classified embryos as “judicial persons” who could sue or be sued.
The case was dismissed in 2017 on the grounds that Louisiana had no jurisdiction in the matter as the embryos were created in California.
Loeb has been very forthcoming about why he’s interested in having his embryonic children be born. In a 2015 op-ed for The New York Times, he said he’s always “dreamed of being a parent.” When responding to Vergara’s request to keep the embryos frozen indefinitely, Loeb wrote, “keeping them frozen forever is tantamount to killing them.”
“When we create embryos for the purpose of life, should we not define them as life, rather than as property?” Loeb asked in the op-ed. “Does one person’s desire to avoid biological parenthood (free of any legal obligations) outweigh another’s religious beliefs in the sanctity of life and desire to be a parent?”
Vergara hasn’t said much about the situation publicly over the years. But she did reply to Loeb’s NYT op-ed after it was published in 2015.
“I really want to make this, like, the last time I talk about it because I don’t think it’s fair,” Vergara told ABC News during an interview on Good Morning America. “I don’t understand why this person [Loeb]—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.”
“This shouldn’t be out there for people to give their opinion when there’s nothing to talk about,” the actress added.
Despite being turned down before, Loeb filed another lawsuit in April 2023, this time taking aim at the Beverly Hills assisted reproductive technology clinic where the embryos were created. Loeb accused the clinic operators of not providing sufficient warning or documentation about what would happen to the embryos in the event of a breakup.
“I never would have gone forward with creating what Sofia and I regarded as lives if I knew that she would not consent, or that she wanted to thaw and destroy the embryos, in the event of a breakup,” Loeb said, per Los Angeles Magazine.
“I am pro-life and pro-parenthood and my religious views are such that I believe that life begins at conception,” Loeb added. “Throughout the course of our relationship, I expressed these views to Sofia, who similarly expressed to me that she was a devout Catholic and therefore also believed that life begins at conception. She told me that she regarded embryos as ‘lives.'”
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Nick Loeb is also known for directing, writing, and starring in the pro-life film “Roe v. Wade,” a political legal drama which premiered in 2020. The film starred leading conservative celebrities including Jon Voight, Stacey Dash, and Robert Davi.
Loeb starred as Bernard Nathanson, a real-life gynecologist who co-founded the abortion rights organization NARAL Pro-Choice America and who later converted and became a vocal pro-life advocate.
The debate over the legal rights of frozen embryos has been raging for years as IVF technology becomes more common and in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which found that the Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion. This effectively sent the legality of abortion back to the states to decide individually.
Dobbs also raised questions on when human life begins and whether unborn embryos should also be treated as human persons. Though there is no official count, it is estimated that there are as many as 1.5 million frozen embryos currently being stored in cryopreservation facilities.