Woman's embryo court ruling due

Ms Evans went to Strasbourg after exhausting the UK legal process

A former cancer patient from Wiltshire is due to discover the results of an appeal to allow her to use her frozen embryos to have a baby.

Natallie Evans was left infertile after cancer treatment.

Ms Evans started IVF treatment with her then partner Howard Johnston in 2001, but he withdrew consent for the embryos to be used after they split up.

Ms Evans went to the Strasbourg court after exhausting the UK legal process.

Failed bid

The government and Ms Evans' cases were presented at a hearing in September 2005. A decision on the case was expected on Tuesday.

Ms Evans went to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg after exhausting the UK legal process.

The Court of Appeal and High Court had both ruled Ms Evans, who is in her early 30s, could not use the embryos and she failed in her bid to take the case to the House of Lords.

Her legal team asked the judges to consider whether the UK law, which now requires her six stored embryos to be destroyed, was a breach of her human rights.

The court's ruling could affect the law, medicine and science.

If Ms Evans is permitted to use the embryos then she must do so before October, which is when the five-year maximum storage period under the law expires.