First bid to overturn 10-year frozen egg law

THE first legal challenge to the UK’S 10year limit on storing frozen eggs has been brought by a 51-year-old who says she needs more time.

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, paid to freeze her eggs in 2009 in the hope of having a baby in the future.

But under the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Act, frozen eggs can only be stored in the UK for 10 years.

Eggs must be fertilised or moved to another country within this period, or else be destroyed. The length of storage time can only be extended if a woman becomes prematurely infertile.

Now the woman, who works in London, is seeking a judicial review aimed at overturning the time limit, arguing that it may be in breach of human rights laws on private and family life. She wants to be able to use her eggs until she is about 55 years old and has launched a crowdfunding campaign along with a group of women who have also been told their eggs – and chances of having a biological child – are going to be destroyed.

Lawyers for the women said the legislation had failed to keep up with advances in technology. One of the women involved in the campaign, who does not wish to use her name, said: “My frozen eggs represent my last chance of having a child that is biologically my own, and the clinic has told me they will be destroyed in a matter of months.

“It is hard to describe the sense of bereavement and turmoil that comes with being told that your eggs will be destroyed. I believe that women should have the right to choose when to have children, not be scared into having them before they are ready because they are worried about future infertility.”

Baroness Deech, former chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said: “The Government must surely show humanity and common sense and bring the law into line with modern times.”