Surrogacy for deceased egg or sperm

[poshme]

In the news there are reports about a person in Scotland who wants to use the sperm of a deceased family member to make a baby using a surrogate.

They are going to go to court to get the right to keep the sperm. They say their sadly deceased child wanted to be a parent and they are just following their wishes.

Surely the courts must say no? Surely unless there have been specific directions left, human tissue from someone should not be used after their death to create a baby?

Grief is awful, but I can't believe this should be allowed.

Do google the case. It's in Times & telegraph.

The Diana Blood case established this as a right decades ago now.

Is it the use of a surrogate that has brought it to court as otherwise it's been allowed for years.

I always, and the Blood case precedes me having my own children, found it odd that you would deliberately conceive a child to then lay on them the memory of their dead parent. Parents die of course, and people use donor insemination but there was something I found a bit strange about this course of action. Also Diana Blood had 2 children, and to be honest, beyond the first child, could you really argue that the dead husband would have wanted a second child. Anyway, there are interviews with her and coverage of the court cases.

@Gwynfluff I think the difference here is that there isn't, and never was- a partner of the donor- the sperm was given & stored when the person was a child- and it's their parent who wants to now use the sperm.

This should be an instant NO.

Nobody has the right to have children least of all a grandmother using her dead 16 yo sons sperm.

Who will be the surrogate?
Will the baby be told the the sperm came from their dead mother?
Why would you do this to a child!

I am of course sorry for her loss but this is not the answer to coping with her grief.

I've read about these quite frankly weird goings on before when someones son died and his parents wanted to use his sperm to create a grandchild. Pretty sure it was refused in the courts.

I know in my IVF paperwork if my DH was to die or become mentally incapacitated then he ticked the box approving that I could still transfer the embryos but obviously he was an adult when he made that decision and the so erm had already been used to fertilise my eggs. I'm not sure a child would have had the legal capacity to agree to such a thing and certainly not his parents using it to create a grandchild?

I believe however there has been a couple of cases in America where is was approved and also Israel. But the ECHR refused someone from a European country and a British couple who did it took the sperm to America to do surrogacy and subsequently came back with the grandchild

Surely there's a consent issue? Imagining a 16 year old wanting to be a parent after their death is creepy and wrong.
It should be an instant and emphatic No.

The person was a minor when they deposited their sperm and they were still very young when they tragically died.

I don't really see a parallel with the Diane Blood case where there was a long established relationship with the plan to create a family together.

This is a (potential) grandmother wanting to use the sperm of her deceased young child (they were 16 when they died). She says that they had "always wanted a family", but really that is by the by - the poor child will never have a child of their own because they are dead.

I am heart sorry for this woman, but it seems unethical to me to plan to create a child from the sperm of a dead 16 year old, a donor egg and a surrogate because you think (say) that's what they would have wanted.

They would have wanted a lot of things that are sadly no longer possible. I guess it's all of her child that she has left and she's clinging on to that.

Mother is displacing her grief through a dream of a new child.

Embryo/sperm in context of a wife accessing after husband's death where evidence of mutual plans to begin/add to family is one thing. No surrogate involved, no separation of infant from mother.

This is an entirely different thing, requires use of one or two women's bodies to achieve ( egg donor/surrogate), deliberately creates a child with no care from bio mother or father.

Also...I don't think this is an ok burden for a child, to be brought into being purely so grandmother can have link to her sadly deceased child.

Deceased minor may have changed mind about baby/children as an adult.

I feel the mother seeking permission needs better bereavement support.

I cannot begin to imagine what those parents are going through. Grief can take you to some strange places and I'm sure I wouldn't be immune myself. But it's the job of the courts to look at the bigger picture and I hope they say no.

I would have thought that the Diane Blood case was different because she could argue that her partner wanted her to be a parent, and she would be an actual parent to the child - both biologically and practically.

Somebody who has died cannot parent in the active sense of the word.

Its a dreadfully sad story

I can see where the grandmother is coming from, but i really don’t think it would be a good idea

Such a sad story but all the idea of a parent having a baby conceived using their dead child's sperm and gestated via surrogacy for them is completely unacceptable. Shame on those diverting this parent into pursuing this rather than supporting her in the awful process of grieving the loss of her child.

My understanding of it is that use of sperm after death requires that there are specific written instructions - maybe there's something a bit different if there's a partner but not for anyone else including the person's parents. From what I've read of this case, the sperm were stored because the person wished to become a parent - not so that their mother could become a grandparent, or just for their child to exist.

It's a very sad situation, but there are many parents who lose their children with no possibility of grandkids, the conditions in this case are very unusual.

And then there is the whole issue of surrogacy - the highly questionable practice of effectively renting a woman's body.

No one should really be thinking they have an absolute 'right' to have a child (let alone a grandchild) - the most we should really have is the right not to be actively prevented from having kids. It's an important difference.

This poor family, my heart goes out to them.

I will be interested in what the courts say about this matter.

No one should really be thinking they have an absolute 'right' to have a child (let alone a grandchild) - the most we should really have is the right not to be actively prevented from having kids. It's an important difference

Good point! I agree.

Terribly sad situation but I don't believe grief should over ride the rights of the potential child.

The parent is clearly in no state to raise another child.

Amazingly (to me) this has already been allowed in a case in California
www.thecut.com/2019/05/peter-zhu-west-point-death-parents-sperm-ruling.html

I'm so very sorry for this family, but that doesn't give them the right to create an orphan, a parentless child by any definition.

I dusagree with this completely. Its sad for the grandma I guess, but still..its just creepy and wrong IMO. Being 'left' grandchildren to look after if tragedy strikes is massively different to creating one when your child dies.

I don’t agree that this should be permitted, no matter how sad the circumstances. I’m not sure why people think the courts are going to change the law on this, when their job is to apply the law as it stands - it is a waste of time and money. I’m assuming they’ll argue it from a human rights perspective, but I cannot see that there is (or should be) any right to use a dead child’s sperm to create a grandchild.

That Californian case was even worse! They extracted the sperm when the poor boy was already brain dead

@sleepyhead

That Californian case was even worse! They extracted the sperm when the poor boy was already brain dead

That's an abomination

Just read (I think) about the case.

If I've got it right, the potential grandmother wants a grandchild, who will have no mother, and no father.

It was all about her, and what she believed the wishes of her 16 year old child were. There seems to be no thought whatsoever into how this child will feel.

To the legal minds here: if this were to succeed would this not create a legal precedent that it would be a 'right' to have a grandchild? If so could that not lead to further cases down the line? Eg, a parent suing a child for a failure to produce a grandchild? I know that seems extreme but I can imagine a narcissistic parent trying it.

Surely this is pushing the boundaries of sperm collection, egg donation and surrogacy to the horizon.

Presumably the sperm was collected from the child so that they would have the option to be able to have a child of their own in the future, with the woman of a future relationship, when their fertility was compromised, rather than for the purpose of definitely having a child.

It is probably a scenario that could crop up in the future, with young people with cancer being encouraged to freeze gametes before treatments that may leave their fertility compromised.