Posthumous children: allow cannot be banned
Life after death
Anna Barabash, Infox.ru
The husband of an Australian woman, Jocelyn Edwards, died the day before signing the documents necessary for in vitro fertilization. The widow insisted on the extraction and cryopreservation of her husband's sperm. However, in the legislation of Australia, the procedure of fertilization with the sperm of a deceased person is not prohibited and is not allowed – such a case is simply not stipulated in the law in any way. The other day, Jocelyn won the right to receive her husband's sperm in court, as reported by The Daily Telegraph and vginekolog.ru . But now she has to get permission to use it in the IVF procedure. In New South Wales, where a woman lives, the use of sperm from a deceased person is impossible, all because of the same lacunae in the law.
If Jocelyn wins the second trial and gets permission for IVF, it will become a precedent in the field of assisted reproductive technologies. [...] The widow intends to fight to the end and give birth to a child.
The father is a dead manMeanwhile, the problem of fertilization with the sperm of a deceased person exists all over the world.
More precisely, if the sperm was frozen in vivo and the donor left a statement in which the procedure for disposing of it is clearly spelled out, this is allowed and practiced. [...] In Israel, the state pays for the cryopreservation of the sperm of all conscripts. Before cryopreservation, a man writes a statement in which he indicates whether sperm can be used in the event of his death and how exactly: for donation or fertilization of a specific woman (wife or fiancee). Or he asks to destroy his ejaculate.
But, what is very important, science still does not know whether a child conceived from sperm taken from a deceased person will be healthy. After death, the mechanisms of apoptosis (programmed cell death) and autolysis (self–digestion of cells and tissues) are activated in the body - the processes of decay, putrefaction, degradation begin. In this case, the DNA is torn into separate fragments, as a result of which the sperm lose their fertilizing ability. There is a risk that the resulting embryos will be of poor quality, unsuitable for transfer into the uterine cavity. Either pregnancy will occur, but will end in a miscarriage. Or a sick child will be born. The result of such fertilization is unpredictable, because it is not known at which point of the DNA there was a break and how many of these breaks were formed. Although it is likely that the baby will be healthy. The chance to give birth to a full-fledged child increases if the testicular puncture was carried out quickly, preferably immediately after the death of the father.
Death and BioethicsIn the USA and Europe, there are laws legalizing the collection of seminal fluid from a deceased person, if there is permission from close relatives.
For the first time in the USA, the experience of conceiving a child from the sperm of a dead father was conducted in 1995. 35-year-old Bruce Vernoff died in hospital from an accidental overdose of medication. 30 hours after Bruce's death, his wife Gaby Vernoff told doctors to remove her husband's sperm and put it in storage. Four years later, using the latest methods of reproductive technology, a team of specialists fertilized the widow's egg. And 9 months later, Gabi gave birth to her daughter Brandalynn.
Brandalynn's birth caused a lot of controversy in America. Glenn McGee, professor at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, believes: "The appearance of this beautiful girl does not mean that we should open the floodgates. This creates a dangerous precedent of reproduction without the consent of one of the parents. I would recommend that all those who get married deposit their sperm and egg in a bank in advance to be sure of future offspring. In my personal opinion, most women who want to give birth to a child from a deceased husband pursue selfish goals. Usually they decide to take this step if there is a question about the division of property and the deceased has children from a previous marriage. To talk about love here, in my opinion, is ridiculous and pointless."
But according to a survey of medical professionals conducted in the United States, 45% of doctors and nurses supported the spread of such practices.
In Israel, the recommendations are legalized, according to which it is allowed to withdraw sperm from a dead person for the purpose of freezing. In the future, the specified sperm can be used for artificial insemination of the wife of the deceased or another woman with whom the deceased was in a relationship.
In 2009, a 42-year-old Englishwoman defended the right to get pregnant from sperm received from her husband a few hours after death. When the woman found out about the death of her husband during the operation in June 2007, she filed an urgent request for the removal of his sperm. The request was granted, and now the preserved sperm is stored in the clinic. Since then, the woman has been trying to convince the UK Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to allow her to use sperm for artificial insemination. According to British laws, sperm can be used only with the written consent of the donor, therefore, in this case, a dead person. However, the woman won the lawsuit. In her favor was the fact that a week before her death, she and her husband talked to a doctor about their desire to have a second child. The court allowed the woman to take the sperm from the clinic, but not to use it in her country. She will have to use the services of American specialists in artificial insemination. This precedent was the reason for the revision of the rules concerning sperm donation.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru26.05.2011