Can’t override reproductive autonomy, says Delhi HC allowing 50-yr-old woman to use frozen embryos

New Delhi: Delhi High Court has permitted a woman aged 50 years and two months to receive her cryopreserved embryos even after crossing the threshold age, noting that reproductive rights and access to parenthood cannot be reduced to purely technical application of statutory conditions.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, in a recent order, said the embryos were retrieved at a point when the woman was undisputedly within the prescribed age bracket of under 50 years and the object of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Regulation (ART) Act was not to create “insurmountable barriers” in the continuation of lawfully undertaken treatment processes.

The ART Act stipulates that a woman has to be above the age of 21 and below the age of 50, and a man has to be above the age of 21 years and below the age of 55 years.

While dealing with the petition by the woman and her husband, the court underlined that reproductive rights and access to parenthood cannot be reduced to purely technical or pedantic application of statutory conditions.

It emphasised that cryopreserved embryos were intrinsically connected with the petitioners’ reproductive autonomy, decisional privacy and their constitutionally protected choice relating to procreation and family life.

“In view of the peculiar facts of the case, this court is of the considered opinion that denial of permission to utilise the remaining five cryopreserved embryos solely on account of the petitioners having marginally crossed the age threshold of the ART process would not subserve the object of the ART Act... In view of the aforesaid, the petition stands allowed. The petitioners are permitted to undergo frozen embryo transfer of their remaining five cryopreserved embryos, with all medical safeguards,” the court concluded.

In their plea, the couple said they decided to undergo IVF treatment at a private hospital after the demise of their son in May 2025.

After one round of unsuccessful transfer, the couple asked the doctors to utilise their remaining embryos, but the hospital refused to proceed further on the ground that the woman had crossed the upper age limit.

HC noted the woman was 49 years, 11 months and 14 days old at the time of retrieval and the couple was not seeking extraction of fresh embryos but utilisation of embryos, which were retrieved when they satisfied the statutory age requirement.

It noted that the woman was now 50 years and 2 months old, and there was no medical opinion on record to indicate that utilising the existing cryopreserved embryos would pose any immediate or exceptional medical risk beyond the general policy concerns underlying the enactment.