A days-old human embryo preserved outside the womb isn't a person under the Arizona law that allows lawsuits for wrongful deaths, the Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled.

The decision is groundbreaking in an area of law that the court acknowledged is fraught with controversy.

A Phoenix-area couple sued the Mayo Clinic, accusing the clinic of losing or destroying some of their fertilized eggs. They had asked the Court of Appeals to expand the definition of "person" under the wrongful-death statute to include embryos with the potential to be viable, but the court declined, saying it's a matter for the Legislature to decide.

As Salon.com's Broadsheet (Lynn Harris) writes:

Any ruling, even a relatively minor one, that does not define embryos as "microscopic Americans" is another wedge against attacks on abortion, stem cell research and the like. As I wrote in a Salon article about insidious efforts to define embryo donation as embryo "adoption," "Though the 1970 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion turns largely on the right to privacy, it also notes -- in an aside that has become anything but -- if fetuses were 'people,' they would be entitled to protection under the 14th Amendment, and abortion would still be illegal. The Center for Women Policy Studies has stated that 'legislative efforts to establish fetal patienthood, victimhood and, therefore, personhood represent the primary threat to Roe v. Wade.'"

Appeals Court: Embryo outside womb not a 'person' under lawsuit statute