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.

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

That about sums it up. Who on earth would do this to a child??? This is monstrous.

I looked up this story and it's terribly sad. I feel so much for the poor bereaved mother.

I agree with PPs that she should have been supported to accept the situation and her terrible grief. It seems like the potential child(ren) are seen as a means to an end, rather than as individuals with their own likes, dislikes, and potentially bloody annoying habits, as indeed we all are.

Apparently her child wanted to have a girl and a boy and already had names picked out. Any of us who've given birth know that it doesn't usually work like that, and at the very least you usually have to negotiate names with your co-parent! But that's beside the point. The tragedy of death is that it brings an end to all of someone's hopes and dreams, to all the things they might have done, been and had.

To me the issue here is a tragically bereaved mother who has lost a 16yo, and a lack of appropriate support (in my opinion) that is not helping her to attempt to deal with this in a more... helpful (to her) way. I struggled over the wording there, because I know there's no "coming to terms" with something like this.

A bereaved parent once said to me that, when you lose your parents, you lose your past, but that when you lose a child, you lose your future. You don't only grieve for your child, you grieve for the life you will now never have, and the grandchildren you will never now have.

I'm really not comfortable with words like 'monstrous' and I don't blame the mother for trying anything she can. But I think the courts have got to step up be the grown ups here.

I think we need to remember that this child socially transitioned at a young age and began the medical route, also at a young age.

I won't say any more, many of you know my views on surrogacy already...in this case the child is born an orphan and this can happen of course, but the child would be specifically created with no mother (egg donors are biological mothers but don't raise the child and are not the 'social' mothers, the surrogate mother is considered the 'oven' and the person who gave the sperm, effectively the sperm donor, is deceased) and would have only a grandmother who, I think, would be doing this to replace her deceased child, would be likely to project a great deal onto this child, and would still be grieving (and you never stop right, when you have lost a child).

If this is medically possible, with judge rulings and doctors and women making it possible, this poor child has a lot to live up to.

I think the key issue here is consent.

Leaving aside all the other issues, the implication that a child can consent to have their eggs/sperm used by somebody else creates lots of ethical problems.

@inthebleakmidwinteriwouldsing
Yes. What you said.

So sad.

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

That case was revolting but the horse has long since bolted on the appropriation of sperm or eggs from the deceased.

In the Diane Blood case sperm was extracted whilst her husband was in a coma.

Feel for the mother but think its heading closer to the creation of Maisie Lockwood in Jurassic Fallen Kingdom than her childs wish to have a child.
It would feel more normal if it had been 2 people in a committed relationship with clear and developed plans to have children together and the male sadly died.

Just awful.

This is about the mother's grief.

Also, the reason the child had their sperm extracted was because they were going to go ahead with gender reassigment as had decided they were transgender. That in itself isn't relevant, but the fact is that if they had not been intending to do that, the sperm wouldn't have been extracted and wouldn't be there in the first place for the mother to potentially access.

It ISN'T that this child wanted their sperm preserved right now at a young age SPECIFICALLY so that should they die a child could be created. It was because otherwise they themselves wouldn't be able to have a biological child.

So that has muddied the waters here. In any other circumstances, this wouldn't be an option for the mother, to 'create' the grandchild she might one day have met. It should also not be an option here.

Is this the case the OP is talking about: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-53889359?

A Scottish woman is preparing to take legal action to prevent fertility doctors from destroying her transgender daughter's frozen sperm.

I do wonder what caused the child's death. It says the verdict was "un-ascertained"

Grief makes you insane.

Didn't the Diana Blood case involves a couple rather than a parent? If so, I don't see how it's relevant.

I feel sorry for the bereaved parents, but using the child sperm in this way would be abhorrent.

Sorry if this has already been explained but ostensibly why does this sperm exist? For what purpose(s) is it being stored at all?

@FaffingForEngland

Didn't the Diana Blood case involves a couple rather than a parent? If so, I don't see how it's relevant.

I feel sorry for the bereaved parents, but using the child sperm in this way would be abhorrent.

It involved assuming that consent had been given by Mr Blood to have his sperm manually extracted whilst in a coma and that he wanted a child to be born after his death, when he was in no position to give his consent.

It seems like a child born from this sperm would carry a terrible sense of loss.

Would the ,'Scottish Woman' be both Mum and Grandmother to the baby?

It just does not seem like in the best interests of the baby that would be conceived using the deceased child's sperm..

Utterly creepy.

I read the story this morning and it sounded all kinds of wrong.
A fourteen year old storing sperm to take hormones was problematic in the first place, and they were far too young to be able to give a fully informed decision of what should happen to the sperm upon death. Especially as they could not have foreseen such an early death.

I empathise greatly with the mother who has lost their child but creating their grandchild is not the answer.

@buttonhole

The child concerned was pursuing male-to-female transition which leads to infertility. At age 14, the child froze sperm in order to preserve the ability to have children eventually.

I just don’t know where this might end... Can anyone claim ownership of gametes of “next of kin” relatives and create offspring from deceased people, even years after they passed away?

Sadly I think this goes well beyond honouring someone’s hope to one day have children, when they are not there to parent the child, to decide when it is conceived or who with.

That’s aside from the collateral implications of other women’s risk donating eggs and going through a pregnancy to bring this dream into reality.

Thanks August

The whole thing is gross.

The world is a fucked up place!

Shame on the solictors/barristers taking on the case, I pray that it fails.

I believe no one is entitled to take another's body/parts after their death - without permission - no matter how much they want them.

Why can't people use their time/money/energy to try and make the world a better place - not a fucked up dystopia?

Awful idea. What implications would it have? Anyone who froze sperm or eggs, if they die, their parents could access and use them? Because the fact they froze them shows they wanted a child?

And now the mother wants another child?
Would they automatically be the child's 'parents' when they are not? Won't they have to apply for adoption? Or can they skip this part because they have paid for the child via a surrogate?

The law assumes the woman who gives birth is the mother and the commissioning father, if he provided the sperm is the father. It would certainly not assume the grandmother is the parent.