Natallie Evans’s legal bid to have a child using embryos which were frozen before she was made infertile by cancer treatment has been knocked back by the Grand Chamber of the European Court.
Natallie Evans’s legal bid to have a child using embryos which were frozen before she was made infertile by cancer treatment has been knocked back by the Grand Chamber of the European Court.
The embryos were created after she had IVF treatment with her partner Howard Johnston. However, he withdrew his consent to use them after the couple split in 2002.
UK laws allow either party to withdraw consent up to the point where the embryos are implanted. Evans argued that Johnston had already consented to the embryos’ creation, storage and use, and should not be allowed to change his mind.
However, that argument—which has already been rejected by the High Court and the European Court of Human Rights—has been dismissed by the Grand Chamber.
Following a unanimous ruling, the 17 human rights judges said in a statement this week that the court “did not consider that
