A High Court judge has lifted a ban on identifying a couple locked in a legal battle to stop the destruction of their stored embryos.
Mary and Patrick Oliver Bradley, from Co Londonderry, are seeking a judicial review after just falling outside newly introduced age rules which would have given them protection.
Even though the embryos are said to represent their last chance at having children, any continued retention at the regional fertility centre in Belfast is classed as illegal under current legislation.
So far the couple have fended off destruction by securing an injunction guaranteeing nothing is done with them until the challenge is decided.
Mr and Mrs Bradley are also seeking permission to be allowed to transport the embryos to the Republic of Ireland should they fail to ensure their retention within the United Kingdom.
Their lawyers had at first sought to have the judicial review heard in private, partially because they did not want to be seen to be using publicity to advance their case.
That attempt was rejected, although Mr Justice Treacy granted temporary anonymity to the couple.
However, the judge had stressed that he needed a proper basis for continuing with the privacy.
With no further substantial arguments advanced, he directed on Tuesday that the case should now be listed normally in future.
Mr and Mrs Bradley's challenge centres on whether or not the laws, which impact on the woman because she is now aged 55, are compatible with their right to family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Changes to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act have shifted the rules away from an upper age for the woman in which the embryo is to be implanted.
Rather than prohibiting her from being 55 or over, it is now the embryo itself which cannot be any older than that.
Although the amendments came effect on October 1, the woman involved in the legal challenge had reached that age days earlier.
The embryos are currently being held at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital in Belfast.
The court has been told that should anything happen to them there is no future prospect of the couple having their own genetic children.
A special directions meeting of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has already been convened to discuss the issue of allowing the embryos to be taken out of Northern Ireland.
And Mr and Mrs Bradley have also now put the Health Secretary on notice as a potential respondent in their challenge.
The case was adjourned until next month, when a date for the full judicial review hearing is expected to be set.
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