A married couple are having difficulty conceiving so they seek fertility treatment from a private clinic. They both willingly supply the necessary components for new life and a number of embryos are created and frozen. Some time later, the couple split up.

One of them has lost all interest in the notion of having children together. But the other spouse is still desperate to become a parent and visits a solicitor to seek advice on the chances of having the embryos thawed and implanted, against the wishes of the other party.

When the solicitor has finished laughing he gently explains to the husband that, no, there isn’t a court in the land that would order the restraint of a woman so that she can be forcibly impregnated at the behest of an estranged partner.

This hypothetical situation is a mirror image of the frozen embryo case that has detained the courts for many months this year in a case that may yet be appealed to the Supreme Court. But the fact that the reverse situation is so utterly improbable shows just how ludicrous it is for men to claim an equal role, either legally or practically, in the reproductive process.

The real-life version of the embryo case involving Thomas and Mary Roche may have appeared to have accorded the man some legal say in whether or not his biological child came into the world. The reality of that process, though, makes any such paternal embargo a logical impossibility.

If men believe this case means they can call the shots when it comes to deciding whether or not they become fathers in any other scenario, they have been sold a pup. The sad, singular circumstances of this controversial case are probably the only ones in which a man has even the remotest chance of a veto in the process, and even then it is a legally constructed illusion.

The fact is that once Thomas Roche had fertilised the egg, his work was done. Once he had made his contribution to the process, he was surplus to requirements.

Once those embryos were created, Thomas Roche couldn’t possibly opt out of being their father — he already was their father. He may have succeeded in preventing the implantation of the embryos in his wife’s womb on a fine legal point, but he cannot undo the fertilisation simply by changing his mind.

It is obvious that fertilisation is the starting point for the creation of life. The fact that these little cell clusters have not crossed the hurdle of being deemed “unborn” within the meaning contemplated by Article 40.3.3 of the Irish constitution does not mean they are not each unique, individual, scraps of human life. The mother’s body, consent and ongoing active participation is required to bring them to independent life. The father’s is not, whatever the law might say.

Tragically, however, this case seems to have given some comfort to men who just can’t get their heads around the fact that their role in the reproductive process is a walk-on part. If you doubt that, check out the internet sites that offer DIY donor kits for women who have decided they want a baby without even knowing the identity of the father, let alone bothering to pursue a relationship with him. Get over it, guys, there is no corresponding service available to you.

Tragically, too, there are other men who view this biological reality as an excuse to take an equally minimal role in their children’s lives. The plus side of this equation for an alarming number of irresponsible fathers is that men are free to renounce their responsibilities and walk away from their kids long before they’re born. Women can’t do that.

Consider even the vernacular sense of the different terms involved. Fathering a child denotes a brief physical transaction. Mothering, on the other hand, conveys a life-long caring commitment.

Having decided that Thomas Roche could withdraw his consent to be a father after the eggs were fertilised, the court probably had no option but to hold that the embryos were not “unborn” humans with legal rights and protections. If he had been prevented from changing his mind on the perfectly reasonable basis that the embryos’ very existence confirmed that they had a father and a mother, then their claim to human status and constitutional protection would have been much stronger.

Viewing the process through a laboratory microscope then, it makes complete sense to say that these embryos are potential humans with a father and a mother. This, though, was only one of the many perspectives the courts had to consider in deciding this issue.

Contorted as the reasoning of this case may be, the effect of the ruling is to reflect a more sophisticated and profound concept of fatherhood than the strictly scientific and coolly logical conclusion could have done. In a nutshell, it says that there’s much more to being a father than just doing the necessary deed.

In the physical act of creating a child, fathers aren’t needed beyond their initial contribution. But for the creation of fully rounded, balanced, functional human beings, they are essential.

Hard though it may be for Mary Roche to accept (and illogical the route by which it was reached) this judgment effectively declares that a father’s commitment, involvement and willingness to be part of his child’s life is even more important than the mere contribution of half the genetic jigsaw. It was perfectly clear that Thomas Roche had no intention of being such a father to those three potential people. The grim statistical evidence suggests many children brought up by single mothers suffer poverty and deprivation as the price of paternal rejection.

Whatever the more bullish male commentators may insist, the father’s role in the actual reproductive process is becoming more, and not less, tangential with the advance of science. Men can, after all, literally mail in their contribution to the procedure these days.

So once he had donated, labelled and signed his contribution in the IVF clinic, Thomas Roche could indeed have been forced, on entirely logical legal grounds, to become a father against his will. But he could never have been forced to be a dad.

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