WASHINGTON – The Colorado Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case next week on in vitro fertilization that is stretching child custody issues into times before fetuses enter their mothers’ wombs.

It also is drawing support or criticism nationwide from groups that seek to protect rights of women, parents or unborn children.

In the case of Coloradans Mandy and Drake Rooks, the now divorced parents are arguing over what should happen to the couple’s six frozen embryos.

Mandy Rooks wants to use at least one of them to bear another child. Her ex-husband wants them destroyed.

So far, lower courts have sided with Drake Rooks, saying Colorado law requires that bearing children through in vitro fertilization needs consent of both parents.The Drakes decided to use in vitro fertilization (IVF) during their marriage because of a fertility problem.

IVF is a process of fertilization in which a woman’s egg is combined with a man’s sperm outside their bodies. Afterward the fertilized egg, or embryo, can be transferred back to a woman’s uterus to make her pregnant.

Nine of Mandy Rooks’ embryos were medically conceived and cryogenically frozen. Mandy Rooks had three children through IVF.

The couple divorced in 2014 after 12 years of marriage. Afterward, Mandy Rooks wanted to use at least one more frozen embryo to have her fourth child.

Mandy Rooks used all of her eggs to make the embryos, meaning the six remaining in cryo-storage are her only opportunity to have more biological children.

The couple’s contract with the fertility clinic said that if they divorced and were unable to agree on whether to use the embryos for more children, a court must resolve the disagreement.

Both the district court and the Colorado Court of Appeals said embryos are not considered people under state law but marital property, which requires the consent of both former spouses to decide how they should be handled.

The court rulings mentioned Colorado’s Civil Remedy for Unlawful Termination of Pregnancy Act in denying the status of a “person” to a human embryo.

The district court balanced Mandy’s argument for birth against Drake’s position the embryos should be removed from freezing. Mandy appealed after the ruling in favor of her ex-husband.

The Court of Appeals cited the Uniform Parentage Act of 2002 in saying that a divorced father could be considered the parent of a child born through in vitro fertilization only if he consented.

“The trial court found that the contract was ambiguous as to how the court should award the embryos in the event of dissolution,” Division VI Judge Diana Terry wrote for the appeals court.

“It resolved the ambiguity by construing the agreement to require both parties’ mutual agreement before any of the embryos could be thawed and implanted and it therefore ruled that absent such an agreement, the embryos would be thawed and discarded on dissolution of the parties’ marriage.”

The court’s ruling blamed Mandy Rooks for failing to leave herself an option to use the embryos for more births in the contract.

“Wife could have contracted to receive the embryos on dissolution of the marriage but did not do so, and instead requested in her supplemental trial brief that the court decide the issue based on a balancing of the parties’ interests,” the ruling says.

“Applying the ‘balancing of interests approach,’ the court determined that husband’s interest in not having more children with wife outweighed wife’s interest in having another child,” Terry wrote.

Mandy’s second appeal will bring the case to the Colorado Supreme Court next week.

Her supporters include the pro-life public interest law firm the Thomas More Society, which is representing the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Their attorney filed an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief that said, “The appellate court erred in adopting a ‘balance of interest’ approach and treating the preserved human embryos as marital property in the divorce. Current science has established that these embryonic children are the result of procreation and are not property.

“Neither the appellate court or the lower district court cited any law that permits the court to terminate the life of a human being without a compelling reason,” the brief says.

Denver attorney Katayoun Donnelly, who is representing Mandy Rooks, did not return email or phone messages for this story.

Colorado U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, who has sometimes voiced concerns on reproductive rights issues, declined to comment, saying the Rooks’ case was a state – not federal – issue.