The Supreme Court judgments in R v R, where next to protect human embryos in vitro?

After the Supreme Court judgments in R -v- R, the Oireachtas has to bring in legislation acknowledging and safeguarding the human status and right to life of human embryos not implanted in a woman.


Following the Supreme Court rulings in R -v- R, human embryos in vitro have no legal protection. I’m going to look through each of the five judgments in turn to see what, pointers there may be in them as to what the next step has to be if we are to move towards the goal of putting in place legal protection for embryonic human life in vitro. The rulings cover four areas, three legal issues and a mixum gatherum of judges’ opinions and musings on the human and moral status of human embryos not implanted in a woman, and related fundamental issues.

The three legal issues are:

(i) whether the frozen embryos are protected under 40.3.3,
(ii) whether the contracts between the couple and the IVF clinic allowed the mother to have the frozen embryos transferred to her, or allowed the father to prevent this, and
(iii) whether the mother could insist on the embryos being handed over to her or the husband could prevent this.

I am only going to look at the way each judgment deals with the first issue. The rest, perhaps, on other occasions.

The 5 judgments are available at http://www.courts.ie/Judgments.nsf/frmJudgmentsByYearAll?OpenForm&Start=1&Count=30&Expand=1.4&Seq=2