59-Year-Old Woman Wants To Conceive Dead Daughter's Baby

59-Year-Old Woman Wants To Conceive Dead Daughter's Baby
sleeping baby holding great grandmother's hand
Getty
sleeping baby holding great grandmother's hand

A 59-year-old woman says she hopes to become pregnant with her own grandchild using her dead daughter's eggs.

According to the Mail on Sunday, the woman wants to fulfil her daughter's dying wish by becoming a surrogate.

Her daughter died four years ago from bowel cancer in her 20s. She had had frozen her eggs because she hoped she would start a family if she recovered.

The mother now hopes to get permission for the eggs to be fertilised by a sperm donor and implanted in her own womb, in what would be the first medical case of its kind in the world.

So far, the woman has been turned down for treatment in the UK, but she and her husband, 58, are trying to transport the eggs to a New York clinic which could provide fertility treatment at a cost of £60,000.

The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has refused the couple's application to export the frozen eggs to America, on the grounds that daughter did not give clear written consent before she passed away.

The paper says the couple, who haven't been named, are now preparing to challenge the ruling in the High Court.

They will claim that their daughter told them of her wishes shortly before she died.

The medical procedure is expected to be fraught with difficulty, with the chances of the woman falling pregnant successfully described as 'very small' and the potential complications 'life-threatening'.

The HFEA, which is said to be sympathetic to the family's dilemma, confirmed the case will now proceed to judicial review. It will be heard in the Administrative Court, a division of the High Court, at a future date yet to be set.

If the legal bid fails, the eggs will be destroyed in February 2018; a decade after they were stored.

A spokesman for the HFEA hasn't commented.

What do you think? Should this be allowed?

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