ABSTRACT
In its judgment Evans v the United Kingdom, the ECtHR recognized for the first time that the right to respect for the decision to become a parent in the genetic sense fell within the scope of the right to respect for “private life” under Article 8 ECHR.1 The applicant was a woman who wished to have the embryos created through in-vitro fertilization (using her eggs and the sperm of her ex-partner) implanted, notwithstanding her ex-partner’s withdrawal of consent to their use by her.2 The ECtHR reiterated this finding in another judgment delivered some months after, in the case of Dickson v the United Kingdom, extending it, by relying this time not only on the right to respect for “private life” but also on the right to respect for “family life”, guaranteed as well by Article 8 ECHR.3 The reference to family life can be explained by the fact that the applicants in this second case were a couple and they both wanted to conceive a child through artificial insemination.
