Natallie Evans, in October 2001, found herself in the same situation as many women before and since who had always assumed that they would have children but had suddenly been faced with a diagnosis of cancer. They are under pressure to have medical treatment as soon as possible which will hopefully destroy the tumour but will also destroy their fertility.

It is only recently that the subject of future children has been raised with women undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In the past, doctors focused only on keeping their patients alive. Many women had no option but to face a future without children that are genetically their own.

In the case of Ms Evans, the issue could hardly be ducked because the pre-cancerous tumours spotted on her ovaries were identified through the IVF treatment she was undergoing with her fiance Howard Johnston, left. She was already desperate to have a child. The answer was to freeze the embryos they had been going to create rather than implant them into her womb. The decision to freeze embryos will have seemed obvious not only because the couple had embarked on fertility treatment together, but also because there was not much alternative then for a woman about to have her ovaries removed.

With hindsight and in the light of medical progress, fertility experts were able to suggest yesterday that there might have been another way.

"Natallie's terrible difficulty, and Howard's dilemma, could have been prevented if Natallie had had her eggs harvested and frozen without being fertilised. That would have given her a chance of genetic motherhood without forcing Howard to become a parent against his will," said Gillian Lockwood, chair of the British Fertility Society ethics sub-committee.

But egg-freezing is available only in a few centres in the UK and in 2001 would have been not only rare but a risk. Some scientists tried freezing ovarian tissue instead, but the first birth after the freezing, storage and transplantation of part of an ovary in 2004, in Belgium, was the subject of some dispute.

The case of Ms Evans and Mr Johnston is a hard one, but it may benefit future generations of women who will have more chances of success as the science of freezing eggs and ovarian tissue advances.