Who owns a frozen embryo?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Wednesday July 05, 2006 01:40

by iosaf

Come out of the cold, The Right to Life calls you !

A 41 year old woman began a case in the High Court of Ireland yesterday, represented by Gerard Hogan SC to have 3 of her embryos released from the freezer of a fertility clinic in Rathgar Dublin. Or.... 3 embryos made for her by a clinic out of her eggs and her estranged husband's sperm.

Her case hinges on her belief and the Irish Courts interpretation of the Irish Constitution's relevant clauses and amendments - that each of the 3 frozen embryos has a "right to life".

do they have a right to life?

The fertility clinic in question "SIMS" was establised in 1997 by two brothers Dr Antrhony Walsh and Dr David Walsh. They head a team of 10 people of whom 7 are medical staff & the others are financial. They have enjoyed steadily increasing rates of success as their website testifies : http://www.sims.ie/home/statistics.asp
& as their rates of success increase their need to freeze so many embryos decreases. The woman facing the High Court, whom we will call "Mrs Egg" decided to undergo IVF treatment in the winter of 2001 to 2002, after losing 66% of one of her ovaries. 6 embryos were "produced" by the Clinic and then at the age of 37 she gave birth to a baby daughter in October of 2002. That indicates a then failure rate of two out of three on behalf of the SIMS clinic which has now reduced to 61%. At which point she and her then husband signed a standard agreement with the clinic to keep the remaining 3 embryos in cold storage for future potential use (meaning having another go).

Mrs "Egg" and her husband (whom we will call "Mr Sperm") seperated shortly afterwards, on pretty usual grounds ; Mrs Egg discovered Mr Sperm had had an affair. Mrs Egg claims Mr Sperm then wanted the remaining 3 embryos destroyed. We may presume he thought they were joint property of the civil union & marriage . But Mrs Egg disagreed...,

Mrs Egg is now in the high court pushing Aquinine fertility ethics and the Irish constitution the limits ( which is why I'm interested. you get near breaking the Irish constitution - I'm riveted with fascination.) Her counsel Gerard Hogan SC is implicitely reported by RTE by attributing to Mrs Egg this statement :- "the brothers and sisters of their existing children, and the right place for them was back inside their mother."

Really really quite fascinating stuff.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0704/embryo.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0703/embryo.html

updates with hopefully reader opinions in the comments.

I am personally of the opinion that the good Drs Walsh & their team of 7 medical staff and 3 financial staff made the embryos & if anyone ought have the babies it ought be the SIMS clinic. I am also keen to see how Pope Paul VI's vitae humanae the bedrock of catholic prohibition of IVF and yet simultanously the bedrock of "the right to life" fair in the High Court...................hmmmmmmmm....................... this will end up in the Supreme Court.