EUROPE: A British legal decision ordering a woman to destroy six frozen IVF embryos she hoped to use to have a baby was a breach of human rights, it was argued in a European court yesterday.
The case raises very similar issues to that recently decided in the Irish courts.
Lawyers for Natallie Evans were appealing in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against an earlier ruling that the Wiltshire woman could not use the embryos in the face of her ex-partner's refusal to give consent.
In March a seven-judge panel at the human rights court rejected Ms Evans's case in a 5-2 decision.
But the final destruction of the embryos remains on hold pending the outcome of yesterday's last-chance appeal to the court's 17-judge "Grand Chamber".
The judges heard Ms Evans started IVF treatment with her partner Howard Johnston in 2001 after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, treatment for which would leave her infertile.
But when the couple split up, Mr Johnston withdrew consent for Ms Evans to use the six embryos, which had been fertilised with his sperm.
Ms Evans applied to the British High Court, arguing that Mr Johnston had already consented to their creation, storage and use, and should not be allowed to change his mind.
Her case was dismissed by the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
The House of Lords - the last legal resort in the UK - would not consider the case.
Having been ordered by UK courts to destroy the embryos, Ms Evans turned to Strasbourg seeking a ruling that refusing to allow her to use the embryos and ordering their destruction breaches the Human Rights Convention, which guarantees the "right to family life".
It also breaches discrimination laws, her lawyers claimed, because the embryos' fate, it is argued, is being determined entirely by her partner.
Current British IVF law - the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act - requires consent from both man and woman at every stage of the IVF process.
But last March the Strasbourg court also rejected her case, leaving yesterday's appeal as the last resort.
It is the first case on IVF and fertility treatment to be considered by the Human Rights Court, and if Ms Evans wins, it could mean big changes for the law, medicine and science in Britain and in Ireland.
Her solicitor, Muiris Lyons of Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, said: "This is Natallie's last chance. It is not about her right to be a mother, or about Mr Johnston's right not to be a father."
Her former partner's lawyer, James Grigg, said: "There must surely be consent to parenthood in the interests of any child born as a result of IVF."