A MOTHER of two who lost a High Court action to have three embryos implanted with a view to becoming pregnant against the wishes of her estranged husband, has asked the Supreme Court to hear her appeal as soon as possible.
Gerard Hogan SC, for the 43- year-old woman, told the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, yesterday that his client was seeking an early hearing date for medical and scientific reasons.
The Chief Justice said he would try to find an available date to hear the case in December or in January. However, the Supreme Court's list for the rest of the current legal term was quite full, he added. The three embryos, created after IVF treatment undertaken by the woman and her husband, who are separated, remain in frozen storage in the SIMS fertility clinic in Rathgar, Dublin.
In his November 2006 judgment dismissing the woman's case, Mr Justice Brian McGovern ruled the embryos were not "unborn" within the meaning of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution - the amendment inserted after a referendum in 1983 - and therefore did not attract the constitutional protection for the unborn set out in that amendment.
In a statement issued through her solicitor Alan Daveron shortly after the judgment was given, the woman said she was determined to appeal so the issue may finally be determined in the interests of her family and the wider public interest.
The woman had sought to become pregnant with the embryos and claimed they were safeguarded from destruction by the constitutional amendment protecting the unborn.
Mr Justice McGovern said he was satisfied the public who voted for protection of the unborn in the Constitution were concerned with the foetus or child in the womb and not with embryos existing outside of the womb.
It was not the function of the Irish courts to decide when human life began, he added, it was a matter for the Oireachtas to decide what steps should be taken to establish the legal status of embryos in vitro.
The judge said expert witnesses in the case offered startlingly different views about when human life began and the courts had no business in intervening as to what happened to the frozen embryos at the Rathgar clinic.