Alone at last
A controversial ruling denies a woman her last chance of childbearing
(sz) NATALLIE EVANS said she felt distraught, and she looked it. Made infertile by treatment for ovarian cancer in 2001, she had just lost her last chance of giving birth to her own child. On April 10th the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg upheld a series of English court decisions, ruling that she had no right to use frozen embryos, formed before her treatment by in vitro fertilisation (IVF) of her still-healthy eggs with the sperm of her then fiancé, without the man’s consent.
Under English law, both partners are required to give consent before embryos are created and again when they are implanted to try to produce a baby. But either party can withdraw consent to continued IVF treatment up to the time of the embryo’s implantation in the womb. Howard Johnson, Ms Evans’s former partner, decided to exercise that right after the couple split up five years ago. The six embryos they made together will now probably be destroyed.
Mr Johnson said he had always insisted he did not want the emotional or financial burden of fathering a child he would not be bringing up. He should be free to choose when and with whom to start a family, he asserted. But Ms Evans argued that, because of her greater “physical and emotional expenditure” in the IVF process, her wishes should take precedence. The embryos’ right to life and her own right to a family life were being violated by Mr Johnson’s decision to withdraw his consent, she claimed. But the judges said they did not consider that her right to become the mother of a baby that was genetically hers deserved greater respect than Mr Johnson’s right not to have a child with her. more…
From: »The Economist« (from the print edition)