Sofia Vergara’s ex-fiance has defended his decision to sue her for protection of their frozen embryos.

Businessman Nick Loeb has written an open editorial in the New York Times saying he sued the Modern Family star because he longs to become a parent and doesn’t want the “two lives” they created to “be destroyed or sit in a freezer until the end of time.”

Loeb, 39, said that when he and Vergara, 42, split up last year he asked her for their two embryos, offering to pay for all the expenses to carry them to term.

Nick Loeb (Charles Sykes/Invision)
Nick Loeb (Charles Sykes/Invision)

He said he was willing to take full parental responsibility if Vergara didn’t want to share custody, but she allegedly refused.

Loeb claimed Vergara’s lawyer has told reporters she wants to keep the embryos frozen indefinitely. He says that’s “tantamount to killing them.”

The American businessman said he “push(ed) for children” after he and Vergara got engaged in 2012, and said the couple agreed the following year to try in vitro fertilisation and a surrogate to have children.

Sophia Vergara with new fiance Joe Manganiello (Nina Prommer/AP)
Sofia Vergara with new fiance Joe Manganiello (Nina Prommer/AP)

Loeb wrote that they signed a form stating that any embryos they created could only be brought to term if both of them agreed. He said the form didn’t specifically say, as California law requires, what would happen to the embryos if they separated.

He is seeking to have the document voided. He and Vergara split in July 2014. She began dating actor Joe Manganiello not long after the split and they became engaged at Christmas.