A BRITISH woman has won a High Court injunction preventing a frozen embryo from being destroyed following her estranged husband's refusal to sign a consent form allowing the extended storage of the fertilised egg, writes Rachel Donnelly from London.
The injunction was granted to allow the embryo to be preserved for a further 21 days, when there will be a second court hearing. The woman's solicitor, Mr Graham Ross, said his client believed this was her only chance to have children.
British fertility clinics began destroying thousands of unclaimed embryos on Thursday after a five year government deadline on the storage of fertilised eggs passed at midnight. But Mr Ross says hiss client, who has not been named only learned of the time limit on the storage of her embryo one day before the deadline expired.
Dr Peter Brinsden, of Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridgeshire, revealed yesterday that he had "kept back" a further six embryos. One belonged to a woman who is threatening legal action while the parents of the remainder had told him consent forms permitting the extended storage were in the post.