US couple allowed to sue over death of test-tube embryo
Cook County Judge Jeffrey Lawrence has backed a couple who want to take legal action against a clinic that destroyed the test-tube embryo they had hoped would one day become their child.
The Boston Globe reports the court is allowing Alison Miller and Todd Parrish to sue for wrongful death, ruling in effect that a test-tube embryo is a human being. Though most legal specialists believe the ruling will be overturned, some in the fertility business worry it could threaten everything from in vitro fertilisation to abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research. Experts say few doctors would risk offering the procedure if any accident that harmed the embryo could result in a wrongful death lawsuit.
Full report in The Boston Globe
The European Court of Human Rights is also to decide whether embryos have human rights. A British woman, Natallie Evans, who was left infertile after cancer treatment, wants to have a baby using frozen IVF embryos. However, EvansÂ’ former partner, Howard Johnston, withdrew his consent for Evans to use the six stored embryos, which had been fertilised with his sperm, when the couple broke up in 2001, reports The Scotsman. A British Court of Appeal ruled in June that Evans could not use the embryos, but she has now lodged an application with the Strasbourg court. Evans is arguing that the embryos themselves have rights under the European Convention of Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory. She also claims that banning her from using the embryos is a breach of her own rights to private and family life, guaranteed by the Convention.
Full report by The Scotsman