Judge rules Dublin man did not give consent for estranged wife to use frozen embryos
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(AP) -- A judge ruled Tuesday that a Dublin man has never given his consent for his estranged wife to use the couple's frozen embryos, a verdict that opens up a wider legal battle over whether fertilized human eggs should enjoy a constitutionally protected right to life.
High Court Justice Brian McGovern ruled that the man -- who signed a contract at a Dublin in-vitro fertilization clinic in 2002 permitting three of the couple's fertilized eggs to be placed inside his wife, three others to be placed in cold storage in event of failure -- had not authorized his wife to use the frozen eggs for future IVF treatments.
"I hold that there was no agreement, either expressed or implied, as to what was to be done with the frozen embryos in the circumstances that have arisen," McGovern said.
The judge criticized as vague and inadequate the different contracts signed by the man and woman at the Sims International Fertility Clinic. It is one of nine facilities offering IVF services in Ireland, a country that has yet to regulate the practice.
He has ordered media not to report the identities of the 41-year-old woman and the 44-year-old man, who separated in December 2002 shortly after the woman gave birth to a daughter produced by IVF treatment.
McGovern said his ruling in the man's favor meant the case would move into much deeper waters that address Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion. That 1983 amendment commits the state to protect the right to life of "the unborn," but doesn't specify whether frozen embryos should be accorded that right.
Court arguments about when life begins could prove particularly divisive in Ireland, a predominantly Roman Catholic country that has fought three public referendums on abortion, most recently in 2002.
In February, Pope Benedict XVI came down on the side of frozen embryos, proclaiming that human life exists "at the beginnings of life of an embryo, before it is implanted in the womb of the mother." Some neurologists and other scientists argue, however, that human life cannot be identified until after the embryo develops after about eight weeks into a fetus.
The woman testified last month that she should be permitted to use the frozen embryos even without her husband's contractual permission. Her lawyer, constitutional expert Gerard Hogan of Trinity College Dublin, said frozen embryos should be included within the constitution's definition of "the unborn."
But McGovern said the next stage of the case also must consider another fundamental point of law -- whether the man, who is in a new relationship, can be forced to become a parent again in the failed marriage, and be held financially responsible for that child.
The next stage of the case was scheduled to begin Thursday, but it isn't expected to conclude until the autumn, because the civil side of the Irish court system shuts down throughout August and much of September.
Whichever way McGovern rules, legal experts expect the case to be appealed to the Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of Ireland's 1937 constitution. Ireland is the only European country with a written constitution.
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer
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