Man fined for abandoning wife's fertilized eggs in landmark case

A man was ordered by a court to compensate his wife for mental anguish after he secretly stopped paying storage fees for her frozen embryos during their divorce proceedings in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, in the first case of its kind in China.

Xuanwu District People's Court ruled that the man should pay 30,000 yuan ($4,740) to his wife for infringing on her rights to health and compromising her procreative progress.

The man, known as Fang Mu, met his wife, Pei Pei, in 2004. He went to study in the United States and returned to China to marry her in 2010. After going to the US to live for four years, the infertile couple decided to try in vitro fertilization at a US hospital.