Legal battle over embryos
Two women are in court today to fight for their right to keep their frozen embryos.
Both Natalie Evans, 31, and Lorraine Hadley, 38, have been denied permission to use the embryos by their former partners and are battling at the High Court to prevent the frozen embryos from being destroyed.
They both underwent IVF treatment and have a number of embryos in storage. However, their respective ex-partners have withdrawn their consent to use them and are attempting to have them destroyed.
The women are expected to argue that destruction of the embryos is a breach of human rights.
They are challenging the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which says that consent to ‘use’ embryos can be withdrawn at any time up to implantation.
Ms Evans, from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, had her ovaries removed after they were found to be pre-cancerous and the embryos represent her only chance of having natural children.
She told reporters: ‘I am pleased to have the opportunity to ask the court to save my embryos and let me use them to have the child I so desperately want.’
Ms Hadley, 37, from Baswich, Staffordshire, has a teenage daughter but a fertility problem means that the embryos represent her only chance to have another child.
She said outside the court today: ‘I am here today to ask the court to let me finish what I have already started. I have two embryos in storage and want the opportunity to use them and I don’t want them destroyed.’
Her former husband Wayne refuses to agree to her using the embryos because he does not want a child born so long after the marriage has ended.
The case is expected to last at least six days.
