Challenges to UK fertility treatment rules predicted

A spate of legal challenges by those previously denied fertility treatment in the UK may follow the introduction of new human rights legislation this autumn, says Ruth Deech, chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

The new act, which comes into effect from October, incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into English law. Originally a response to the Nazi atrocities committed during the Second World War, the European legislation covers the right to private and family life and the right to marry and found a family. 'I suspect that from October we're going to have a lot of interesting questions being raised about whether treatment can be refused to single women, to women of 60, to lesbian and gay couples, to widows, and whether sex selection for social reasons can be denied,' Mrs Deech said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper last week.

The new legislation will give judges the power to decide whether British law meets the requirements of the European human rights convention. Diane Blood, who won the right to be artificially inseminated with her dead husband's sperm after a four year battle said 'As far as my understanding of the law goes, people already have those rights but they have to go to Strasbourg to get them enforced'.

Currently, one of the HFEA conditions for an IVF clinic seeking a licence states that 'a woman shall not be provided with treatment unless account has been taken of the welfare of any child who may be born as a result (including the need of that child for a father)'. A government source said it would be up to the courts to decide on cases in which new rights established under the human rights act appeared to clash with UK rules on fertility.