I am - honest - the kind of feminist who is doing her best to instigate a peace process in the battle of the sexes. I know there's no truth in the old war cry: "All men are bastards." There's my dad, my partner and my two sons for starters. Kind, compassionate, honest and trustworthy, they're the kind of guys of whom you can be confident their word is their bond. But there are times - and this week's outrageous decision over the ownership of frozen embryos is a prime example - when I'm ready to take up arms and go back to the front line.
Was there ever a more cruel, mean-spirited, selfish breach of trust between a man and a woman than in the actions of Howard Johnston and Wayne Hadley? They are the two men who have withdrawn permission for eggs fertilised by their sperm to be used, despite the desperate wishes of the two women involved to use the embryos to bear children, even though their respective relationships have broken up.
Wayne and Lorraine Hadley were married and both (please note the both) wanted children together. She failed to conceive and tests showed she had polycystic ovaries. They were told their only chance was to have IVF. Wayne held her hand throughout the removal of eggs and, according to Mrs Hadley, vowed never to leave her side. Five months on, he admitted he was having an affair and the pair divorced. He has since remarried and has a bouncing two-year-old boy. It's not difficult to imagine Lorraine's jealousy and sense of betrayal. She's unlikely to have a further chance to reproduce.
In the case of Natallie Evans and Howard Johnston the IVF was necessary after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Again both (please note both) entered into the decision to reproduce, the eggs were fertilised and frozen until Miss Evans' treatment for cancer was completed. For her these embryos were, without doubt, the last chance to become a mother. Her ovaries have been removed and she will never produce another egg. Mr Johnston, presumably, will have ample further opportunities to become a dad.
The relationship broke up before the embryos were implanted and Mr Johnston decided he didn't want to go ahead with the next stage. The court has ordered that all the embryos are to be destroyed within 28 days if there is no successful appeal.
Has no one considered the relative pain these people have endured? For a man, IVF involves nothing more humiliating than having five minutes of fun with a dirty magazine. For women there's a long course of invasive hormone treatment, an agonising surgical procedure to remove the eggs and in some cases, the risk of long-term illness or even death if the treatment goes wrong. We've accepted in the case of abortion that a foetus, once conceived, is the woman's responsibility. It is her body that will carry it to term. It is her body that will be invaded if she chooses to terminate. In terms of the physical investment involved, I can see no difference, whether the creative process takes place in the womb or in the test tube.
More importantly, these cases go to the very heart of the debate about fatherhood, and what it means. It is no longer acceptable to have a quick knee-trembler behind the bike sheds and leave the woman holding the baby. Conception is a joint enterprise, whether both agree a child should result or not, and carries enduring responsibility. The Child Support Agency sees to that. Why should a technical method of conception be any different?
Bob Geldof made a plea for fathers to be treated equally under the law, automatically carrying 50% of the responsibility for caring and paying for a child throughout its life, even after the relationship founders. It's a seductive argument. We all want fathers to be more involved with their children and to treat the promises they have made to their offspring and the mothers who will bear them as sacrosanct. Running away is not an option whether you're talking embryo, foetus or child. An embryo is not a viable human being, although these women have stated that they see them as their "children". For the men who've walked away, they seem to be no more than blobs of jelly to be done away with without a second's thought for the moral questions this case raises. A law that makes it possible for a man to renege on the kind of commitment to reproduce that was made here is truly an ass.
Admittedly, the judge in this case, Sir Justice Wall, was correct in his strict legal interpretation of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. It states that fertilised eggs must be disposed of if either partner withdraws consent for them to be used, but he left his moral compass and his heart at home. And he was wrong to say any criticism of the men's motives in wanting the embryos to be destroyed was unfair. I doubt the putative "fathers" have a heart between them.
· Jenni Murray is a journalist and broadcaster and author of That's My Boy!
