Woman to seek early appeal over embryos
Mary Roche, 43, from Leopardstown, Dublin, was refused permission 16 months ago to attempt pregnancy with three frozen embryos created with IVF treatment before she and her husband split up.
Her legal team, who recently informed the courts that they were ready to appeal that decision, are preparing to apply to have it heard as a priority case. They would otherwise face a two-year wait for a hearing date, such is the backlog of cases that has built up in the Supreme Court.
In November 2006, the High Court decided against Ms Roche, ruling that her embryos were not “unborn” within the meaning of the Constitution and did not have an automatic entitlement to life which could take precedence over their father’s objection to their use.
While the case arose from the couple’s personal differences, it highlighted the lack of national legislation governing the handling of embryos, thousands of which are stored in limbo in fertility clinics around the country without any laws to direct if they can be destroyed, donated or used for research if excess to the requirements of the couples who created them.
Presiding judge Mr Justice Brian McGovern complained in his ruling: “The courts are being asked to deal with a complex dispute involving social issues which should be governed by a regulatory regime established by an act of the Oireachtas.”
Health Minister Mary Harney has been promising legislation since taking office but a Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction set up in 2000 to examine the issues involved reported three years ago and its 40 recommendations have not yet been adopted.
The sensitivity of legislating on the issue, with the prospects of having to decide once and for all at what point in its development an embryo acquires the constitutional protections afforded “the unborn”, was evident this week when it emerged that Ms Harney, her predecessor Micheál Martin and a number of fertility clinics recently received bullets and threatening letters from pro-life activists calling themselves the Irish Citizens Defence Force.
The Department of Health said yesterday Ms Harney had instructed her officials to begin drawing up legislation but they would have to consider the outcome of the court proceedings, plus a report due from the Oireachtas Health Committee after the court rules.
It is expected Ms Roche’s appeal will be scheduled for hearing within the next few months but judgments from the Supreme Court following hearings almost always take months, and sometimes years.
