COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Women's rights attorney Gloria Allred has agreed to represent three women who lost eggs when an Ohio fertility clinic storage tank malfunctioned.

Allred said at a news conference in Cleveland on Monday that her clients are cancer survivors who delayed chemotherapy to undergo fertility treatments at the clinic run by University Hospitals.

She says mistreatment of women is wrong anytime, but especially in such an intimate and personal part of life.

The clinic said last week that an alarm system was turned off on a storage tank that malfunctioned in early March and ruined more than 4,000 eggs and embryos.

Several lawsuits have been filed against University Hospitals. A message was left with the hospital system seeking comment.