The High Court will rule within days on whether documents signed by a husband four years ago consenting to fertility treatment for his estranged wife constitute a consent by him to have three frozen embryos taken out of storage and implanted in her uterus.
If he finds there was such a consent, Mr Justice Brian McGovern will also rule whether the 44-year-old man is entitled to revoke it in light of the couple's separation in 2005 and the man's wish not to have any more children with his 41-year-old wife.
The court has heard the couple had a son who was conceived naturally in 1997 and also had a daughter, conceived as a result of IVF treatment at the Sims fertility clinic in Rathgar, Dublin, in early February 2002.
Their marriage broke down later in 2002 and the man is opposed to his wife's application for the release of the frozen embryos to her for implantation purposes.
The names of those involved cannot be published by court order.
Submissions by John Rogers SC, for the husband, concluded yesterday on the issue of whether documents signed by the husband at the Sims clinic in early 2002 constitute a consent or an irrevocable consent to the frozen embryos being implanted in her uterus.
Mr Justice McGovern said he will give judgment on that issue within days.
The case will be mentioned to the judge again tomorrow morning to decide when the court may resume to deal with other issues, including constitutional issues.
The judge today indicated he was anxious the case conclude in this legal term, which ends July 31st, but Mr Rogers said he may have difficulties as another complex family law case in which he is involved is due to resume on July 18th.
Earlier today, Mr Rogers said the Constitution requires that the family be protected in "its constitution and authority". The husband's existing family unit was himself, his wife and their two children but the wife sought to bring in another child and to force her husband to be its father.
This, counsel argued, was an unconstitutional attack on the husband's family rights. In evidence, the wife had clearly perceived any mutual decision on a third pregnancy would be in the context of the couple remaining happily married, he said.
There was no equivalence between sexual intercourse leadng to pregnancy and IVF, counsel also argued. IVF was "not mother nature" but "the hand of man and woman intervening to secure what would hopefully be viable embryos in a uterus".
There was no warrant in law for a suggestion there could be no recall by a man in that situation unless there were specifically articulated agreements to that effect.
