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A woman abandoned her High Court attempt yesterday to save her frozen embryo. Last week the woman obtained a temporary injunction preventing Bourn Hall Clinic, Cambridge, from destroying the embryo. But after a private hearing before Mr Justice Bennett, Bourn Hall's medical director, Peter Brinsden, said the woman had withdrawn her legal action.

Mr Brinsden said the embryo would be destroyed in compliance with the law which says it must be disposed of after five years in storage, unless the deadline is extended by both biological parents' "written and informed" consent. The clinic had now disposed of all the embryos it was required to by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, he added. It was an "ongoing process" and "almost certainly" others would fall due for destruction.