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Irish Supreme Court rules stored embryos "not unborn"

An Irish woman has lost her bid in the Supreme Court to have her frozen embryos, left over from her previous in vitro fertilization treatments, implanted in her womb. Despite the Irish constitutional guarantee for the right to life "from conception," the Supreme Court ruled that the three embryos cannot be implanted against the wishes of the woman's estranged husband, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com. Mary and Thomas Roche underwent IVF treatment in 2001.

The five judges ruled that the human embryo does not enjoy protection under Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution that says, "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother." An embryo frozen in storage does not constitute "the unborn," the ruling said.

The Dublin-based Pro-Life Campaign has said that the decision is "regrettable" but that it has raised public awareness of the issue and of the need for legislation protecting human embryos. Dr. Berry Kiely of the Pro-Life Campaign said, "The human embryo is not potential life; it is human life with potential. Each one of us passed through this early stage of life on our way to birth.

"The very basis of democracy is respect for the equal dignity and worth of every human being under the law. Our first and most important human right is the right to life."

Pat Buckley, Ireland spokesman for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, told the media that the court's interpretation was wrong and contrary to international human rights law, in that it treats embryos as "mere property." "In fact," Buckley said, "they are equal members of the human family."

"International human rights law does not exclude human embryos from the equal right to life upheld in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights instruments. There is no genetic difference between an embryo inside or outside the body. The right to life, which is inalienable, does not change according to location.

"Although it would be unethical for embryos outside the body to be implanted, it is permission for IVF, and not the Roches' estrangement, which has created this tragedy in which their children will never be born. Any legislation, therefore, which may be passed following this case should ban IVF," Buckley continued.

The Irish case is one among many that highlight the ethical dilemmas created by the production of human beings outside the womb. Since the widespread acceptance of artificial methods of procreation, and the large numbers of in vitro embryos held in cryogenic storage, pro-life ethicists and others have debated their possible fates.

Legislation introduced in most western countries allow "spare" embryos to be "donated" and used for experimentation, a solution that has been denounced in the pro-life movement.

Some have suggested the solution of "embryo adoption" in which women could come forward and have these implanted in their wombs and brought to term. The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in December 2008 published the document Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of the Person), that ruled out this practice saying it is "praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending human life," but that it presents ethical "problems" having to do with the inherently unethical nature of surrogate motherhood.

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TAGS: Ireland Supreme Court frozen embryos right to life unborn human rights law

[12/17/2009]

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