THE LONDON HIGH Court has denied an attempt by a woman to use her dead daughter’s frozen eggs to create her own grandchild, after deciding it wasn’t clear whether the daughter wanted the procedure.
The daughter died in 2011 at age 28 and had signed a consent form agreeing that her eggs could be stored after her death but had not specified how they should be used.
In the ruling issued today, the UK court rejected a request by an unnamed woman and her husband to send her daughter’s eggs to a US fertility clinic, where they would have been fertilised and transferred into the woman.
Britain’s fertility regulator, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), refused to ship the eggs abroad, arguing there was no clear proof the daughter wanted her mother to use her eggs.
The BBC reports Justice Ouseley said:
“I must dismiss this claim, though I do so conscious of the additional distress which this will bring to the claimants, whose aim has been to honour their daughter’s dying wish for something of her to live on after her untimely death.”
It was claimed the daughter, “A”, had her eggs frozen after being diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 23.
The BBC reports that her parents say she asked her mother to “carry my babies” when she knew there was no hope she would survive.
The mother said her daughter had told her:
“I didn’t go through IVF to save my eggs for nothing.
“I want you and Dad to bring them up, they will be safe with you.”
Additional reporting Associated Press
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