Recognition of the ethical and legal requirement of informed consent for medical interventions has expanded again internationally, with a decision in the European Court of Human Rights. The Fourth Section of the European Court of Human Rights held 5-2 in Evans v. United Kingdom that in the absence of contrary law the rights of informed consent and withdrawal of consent to medical procedures apply where the consent to assisted human reproduction is withdrawn by either prospective parent prior to implantation of the resulting embryo, even if the withdrawal of consent is against the wishes of one prospective parent and the embryos might be destroyed. The majority and minority differed on criteria for respecting a withdrawal of consent in assisted reproduction cases and noted that national practices differ in such cases but did not question the idea that informed consent is the general legal and ethical norm for health interventions.
The majority opinion cites U.K. law and what it characterizes not as law but as “relevant international texts”: A Council of Europe study of differing assisted reproduction policies in member states; the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, to which the U.K. is not a party and which is in force for very few countries; and the recent Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, a nonlaw document proposed by a panel of experts convened by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
The decision is available at:
http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/ view.asp?action=html&documentId= 793163&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumber&table=1132746FF1FE2A468ACCBCD1763D4D8179.