Law and embryology.

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Law and embryology

The law surrounding the rights of an individual has become more contentious over recent years, due to the expanse of Europe. With the advent of the European convention on human rights and are implementation in our own Human Rights act 1998.We all have more rights than ever and these convention rights has been raised in cases such as Evans v Amicus limited.

However as well as a discussion on rights it also deals with interpretation of the relevant acts and how this interpretation affects the rights of people. This case concerned two women who ‘together’ with their partners took part in the treatment of In Vitro fertilisation. During the fertility treatment the couple split up and ended their partnership. However there was still Embryo’s being stored, and the women wished to use these even though they were no longer with their partners.

The partners withdrew their consent, which is covered in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology sch. 3 para. 4(1). This gives the right to either party of the in vitro fertilisation, to withdraw their consent, which effectively stops the treatment.

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Evans was pushing for a declaration of incompatibility under s.4 (4) of HRA 1998, so that the HFEA 1990 would be discussed in the ECHR. The human rights, that were said to be interfering with art.2 (right to life) art.8 (right to private/family life), art.12 (right to marry and start a family and finally art.14 (right to non-discrimination).

However the Evans case failed, meaning there would be no change to the supposedly offending laws concerned. There was leave for appeal given by three courts of appeal judges on 16-1-2004. On appeal the human rights aspects will be looked at ...

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