European Court of Human Rights comments on private life were deemed an “unacceptable pronouncement on the status of the human embryo” by five of its judges, including Chief Justice Emeritus Vincent De Gaetano.

In a joint partly dissenting opinion, the five judges said: “To find that the embryo is ‘a constituent part’ of the applicant’s identity is a far-reaching finding indeed. Unlike the majority, we do not consider that embryos can be reduced to constituent parts of anyone else’s identity – biological or otherwise.

“Whilst sharing the genetic make-up of its biological ‘parents’, an embryo is, at the same time, a separate and distinct entity albeit at the very earliest stages of human development.

“If a human embryo is no more than a constituent part of another person’s identity then why the abundance of international reports, recommendations, conventions and protocols that relate to its protection? These instruments reflect the broad general acceptance within the human community that embryos are more than simply ‘things’. They are, as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has put it, entities ‘that must be treated in all circumstances with the respect due to human dignity’.”

The other four ECHR judges joining Chief Justice Emeritus De Gaetano in expressing such an opinion were Judge Josep Casadevall (Andorra), Judge Ineta Ziemele (Latvia), Judge Ann Power-Forde (Ireland) and Judge Ganna Yudkivska (Ukraine).

Their stand forms part of a Grand Chamber judgment published last Thursday finding that Italy did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights when it stopped Rome resident Adelina Parrillo from donating to scientific research embryos obtained from in vitro fertilisation not destined for a pregnancy.