Delhi HC permits 50-year-old woman to claim embryos

The Delhi High Court has permitted a woman aged 50 years and two months to receive her cryopreserved embryos even after crossing the threshold age, saying reproductive rights and access to parenthood cannot be reduced to purely technical or pedantic application of statutory conditions. Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said the embryos were retrieved at a point when the woman was undisputedly within prescribed age bracket 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 stated that reproductive rights.