Any threads on the embryo case?

[Quootiepie]

Just wondering, as I think the decision is today...

Sobernow, yes that was my gut reaction too - but I think the crux is that it's a "woman's right to choose" what happens to her own body, not what happens to an embryo per se.

As the two things are usually inextricably linked I think this is where the feeling that she should have the final say over the embryos comes.

But in this case the embryos are separate from her body...

I really hope though that she is able to move on from this and become a mother by other means. It will be extremely hard for her I should imagine as she will obviously be feeling such loss for the children that could have been.

Pruni, exactly. That's why I was saying permission to implant has to be separate to permission to implant, particularly as normally numerous embryos are created and could be implanted years after their creation. A very different proposition to conception via sex.

I wonder if he has a price. If donors came along and said here is £2m and I'll adopt the child would he do it? Also has anyone checked if it is his sperm? Some clinics get it wrong. One white couple had a black baby as the clinic had mixed the wrong sperm. Might be worth testing if that's possible before flushing them away.

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I wonder if anyone was negligent in not telling her when her eggs were taken that she had two options - fertilise them or not and what the consequences of each course of action might be?

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I feel really sorry for her. Not for him. Only for her. He gave his consent at the time. Like when you give your consent to have sex on a one night stand. Then he took it away. He must really dislike her to hurt her so much. And she must hate him. I'm not saying the decision is wrong. The whole thing needs thorough investigation. But that won't help her, will it.

having been through IVF myself - my heart blelds for her but like many others I think it probably was the right decision. Egg freezing (as opposed to embryo freezing) is still very unsuccesful and was probably not advised when she had her treatment. Defrosting success has inproved but is still not as succesful as frezing embryos.

Probably unfairly, I do think less of him for not letting her go ahead anyway.

Xenia, I think I saw her interviewed after the last case and she said this was an option, but that she and Howard were such a rock-solid couple neither of them thought it was a possibility that they would split up. Tragic.

P, I don't think I said she could buy them, although anyone in the UK is actually free to go to the US buy eggs often of very clever UK or US university students etc but that is not the same as your own genetic child.

So she took the option assuming they'd stay together. I suppose for others in future it would be better to do both - store some eggs and some fertilised eggs. My sister bought sperm from the states but that's a different issue.

I think she has a moral right to have a child of her own and that should over ride her ex partner's rights here as long as it can be done legally so the child is adopted and there are no claims on the father even if the mother dies.

right decision I think in this case, although I feel for the woman and I really hope the man has good reason for putting her through this. And I hope the medical profession now learns from this and gets women to freeze eggs as well.

Must be awful, not only losing the ability to have your own child but knowing that what you see as a baby (rightly or worngly) is being destroyed- my heart goes out to her.

I agree, looking at the case at the simple facts without any emotive angle the decision was the right one. It's no wonder that the IVF industry is the most heavily regulated in the country with these sorts of ethical issues involved.

But can you imagine being her, for the rest of your life thinking, 'what if?'

Consent can be withdrawn at any stage of the embryo freezing/implantation procedure. They both went into it knowing this. He has chosen to withdraw his consent for implantation and that is absolutely his right. I agree with aloha that we would probably feel uncomfortable with the idea of him having the embryos implanted into a surrogate against her wishes.

That said, this is a very sad case as it is said to be her last chance of motherhood - but the law must stand firm here, IMO.

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I was pleased it was refused. A woman can't be made to be a parent against her wishes so why should a man? And what about the potential poor child born from this? How would they feel about a Dad who didn't want them born. And I disagree totally that she has put up a courageous and dignified battle. Some of her outbursts on tv have been hardly dignified and it isn't courageous to make someone be a parent when they don't want to be.

I think the right decision has been made.

After we conceived DS (who was a frozen embryo for nearly a year!), we had to decide what to do with our remaining embryo.

This embryo had been frozen twice, incredibly enough - a complicated scenario but we initially had frozen embryos, then defrosted all of them, then allowed the ones that survived the defrost to continue growing in vitro for another 3 days (known as taking them to blastocyst stage), and then we had two transferred. The third one which made it was refrozen.

Anyway, we had the choice of either keeping, donating or destroying that embryo.

DH and I both agreed that we did not want to keep the embryo because it was very unlikely for it to survive a second defrost, or implant successfully. To go through a medicated cycle for such a low chance was not something we would consider, if we were going to have anotehr attempt at IVF we would start with a new, fresh cycle.

We also agreed, luckily we both feel the same about this, that we could not donate our embryo, because we both feel that we would not want to have our own genetic child somehwere out there are not be involved in it's upbringing - and this is what Howard Johnstone has objected to. So I absolutely understand his decision. He does not necessarily hate Natalie Evans at all.

In the end we opted for our embryo to be destroyed, which was an incredibly hard decison to make, but to me they were not babies (could never have allowed myslef to think of them as such), they were our genetic material which if implanted in my womb successfully, would possibly grow into babies.

I feel terribly sad for Natalie Evans, of course, and especailly that she did not have the option to freeze eggs which she could have done if it had happnened today.

Fio. That's a really good point.

I think the greater harm is done to her by not having her own biological child than is done to him by coping emotionally with a child he doesn't see or support (he can have therapy for that). And yes I think if a father wants a child and the mother doesn't after a break up he sdhould be free to implant it in a host mother if he otherwise couldn't have children.

it's a pity no one said to her - what if you break up - why not freeze just some eggs too. Did she not think of that? Should she realy have had a lawyer to advise her at the time? Is that where she went wrong - not having someone to advise her on what would happen if things went wrong? This thinking ahead thing, looking at all possibilities.

Xenia you aren't very well informed; at the time she had the treatment it wasn't possible to freeze just the eggs with as much chance of successful IVF later (things have changed now).

He was on Radio 4 today, saying carefuly that she had said at the time the embryos were made that she would love an adopted child as much as her own. She was emphatic about it, back then. They had the embryos done as just another of her future options, all equally valid, or so they agreed at the time.

On that basis, he doesn't feel that he is depriving her of anything; she still has plenty other ways of becoming a mother (as Fiofio pointed out).

But you still could freeze eggs. I remember 10 years ago when my sister turne 30 my mother suggesting she freeze just her eggs just in case she chose to have children later.

but the freezing 10 yrs ago was really not very succesful at all. It is still far less successful than freezing embryos and even they are lower quality than fresh and a proportion don't survive the freezing process.