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SOURCE: Grieving widow, 62, wins right to extract sperm from dead husband
A 62-year-old woman in Australia has won the right to extract her dead husband’s sperm — but faces an ongoing battle to be able to use it.
The woman — who has not been identified for legal reasons — was looking into conceiving a child via surrogate when her 61-year-old husband died suddenly at their Western Australia home on Dec. 17, ABC reported.
She presented an “urgent” case before the Supreme Court the next evening, and Justice Fiona Seaward granted her permission to have the sperm tissue removed from her husband’s body, which was still being stored at a morgue in Perth, the outlet explained.
But the use of reproductive cells following death is against the law in Western Australia — so she needs to apply to the Reproductive Technology Council to use the sperm in another state where it is legal, ABC said.
The couple had been “talking about having another child” after their 29-year-old daughter drowned on a fishing trip 2013 and their 30-year-old son perished in a car accident in 2019, the court documents viewed by The Post stated.
While the wife had been told that she could not conceive due to her age, the husband’s sperm was previously tested and deemed suitable for in-vitro fertilization, wherein a female egg is fertilized by male sperm in a lab before being implanted in the carrier.
The woman’s cousin, who is in her 20s and lives in the Philippines, had even volunteered to be the couple’s surrogate, the court heard.
At the time of the man’s death, however, the couple was still grappling with legal obstacles to the surrogacy, which would have required them to live in the Philippines for a while, the documents explained.
In court, Seaward ruled that there was no reason to believe the deceased man would have objected to his sperm being removed post-mortem, ABC said.
But the judge also questioned why the decision had not already been approved by a hospital delegate.
According to the grieving wife, she tried to get the extraction handled shortly after her husband’s death, but was forced to apply for the urgent order when the facility did not appoint a “designated officer” to handle the request, the court documents explained.
“It is disappointing that it appears that, once again, an applicant has been required to attend court on an urgent basis and in traumatic circumstances to obtain an order that may … be granted in a faster and more streamlined manner,” Seaward wrote in her final decision, per ABC.
Experts in reproductive health, however, are generally divided on the issue of posthumous fertilization.
“Medically it’s all feasible,” University of Western Australia professor of reproductive medicine Roger Hart told ABC.
“But it’s whether it’s the right thing to do … counselors, psychologists would be the best people to make that judgment,” he said.
Good grief, there's a lot to unpack here.
Firstly, the tragedy of losing not one child, but two, is almost beyond words. However, the response was, apparently, to plan on having another child at the later stage of life. We've moved into an area where medical science can make this happen, but we run into some morality issues, imo. Not to mention, the use of a surrogate means the lady won't be going through a pregnancy herself (for obvious reasons) so one has to think about what the motherly connection would be like.
I guess it's not so much the science, but the reasoning that gives me pause here. You can't replace those two children, and as we all know, the final 20 years or so of our lives won't be anything like our first 20! With all the best intentions in the world, the upbringing of a child at this age is to questioned.
Add into the mix, the husband is no longer with us either! So now you have a surrogate mother and a dead husband coming together to present a new child to the only remaining "parent" who is 62 years of age. Not only that, but she'd have to move for a period to a foreign country to make it happen.
And what of the cousin who is willing to act as surrogate?
So very strange.
EDIT: I just learned that the name for this is "Posthumous Conception". Ouch. Imagine knowing you were a posthumous conception.
EDIT 2: Chinese baby born four years after parents' death
This is a similar story from 2018.
A 62-year-old woman in Australia has won the right to extract her dead husband’s sperm — but faces an ongoing battle to be able to use it.
The woman — who has not been identified for legal reasons — was looking into conceiving a child via surrogate when her 61-year-old husband died suddenly at their Western Australia home on Dec. 17, ABC reported.
She presented an “urgent” case before the Supreme Court the next evening, and Justice Fiona Seaward granted her permission to have the sperm tissue removed from her husband’s body, which was still being stored at a morgue in Perth, the outlet explained.
But the use of reproductive cells following death is against the law in Western Australia — so she needs to apply to the Reproductive Technology Council to use the sperm in another state where it is legal, ABC said.
The couple had been “talking about having another child” after their 29-year-old daughter drowned on a fishing trip 2013 and their 30-year-old son perished in a car accident in 2019, the court documents viewed by The Post stated.
While the wife had been told that she could not conceive due to her age, the husband’s sperm was previously tested and deemed suitable for in-vitro fertilization, wherein a female egg is fertilized by male sperm in a lab before being implanted in the carrier.
The woman’s cousin, who is in her 20s and lives in the Philippines, had even volunteered to be the couple’s surrogate, the court heard.
At the time of the man’s death, however, the couple was still grappling with legal obstacles to the surrogacy, which would have required them to live in the Philippines for a while, the documents explained.
In court, Seaward ruled that there was no reason to believe the deceased man would have objected to his sperm being removed post-mortem, ABC said.
But the judge also questioned why the decision had not already been approved by a hospital delegate.
According to the grieving wife, she tried to get the extraction handled shortly after her husband’s death, but was forced to apply for the urgent order when the facility did not appoint a “designated officer” to handle the request, the court documents explained.
“It is disappointing that it appears that, once again, an applicant has been required to attend court on an urgent basis and in traumatic circumstances to obtain an order that may … be granted in a faster and more streamlined manner,” Seaward wrote in her final decision, per ABC.
Experts in reproductive health, however, are generally divided on the issue of posthumous fertilization.
“Medically it’s all feasible,” University of Western Australia professor of reproductive medicine Roger Hart told ABC.
“But it’s whether it’s the right thing to do … counselors, psychologists would be the best people to make that judgment,” he said.
Good grief, there's a lot to unpack here.
Firstly, the tragedy of losing not one child, but two, is almost beyond words. However, the response was, apparently, to plan on having another child at the later stage of life. We've moved into an area where medical science can make this happen, but we run into some morality issues, imo. Not to mention, the use of a surrogate means the lady won't be going through a pregnancy herself (for obvious reasons) so one has to think about what the motherly connection would be like.
I guess it's not so much the science, but the reasoning that gives me pause here. You can't replace those two children, and as we all know, the final 20 years or so of our lives won't be anything like our first 20! With all the best intentions in the world, the upbringing of a child at this age is to questioned.
Add into the mix, the husband is no longer with us either! So now you have a surrogate mother and a dead husband coming together to present a new child to the only remaining "parent" who is 62 years of age. Not only that, but she'd have to move for a period to a foreign country to make it happen.
And what of the cousin who is willing to act as surrogate?
So very strange.
EDIT: I just learned that the name for this is "Posthumous Conception". Ouch. Imagine knowing you were a posthumous conception.
EDIT 2: Chinese baby born four years after parents' death
This is a similar story from 2018.
