A woman from Australia, aged 62, has been granted permission to extract sperm from her deceased husband. She managed to convince a judge that they had been contemplating having a child prior to his death.
The couple’s decision to have another child was influenced by the tragic loss of their 31-year-old son in a car crash in 2019, as revealed in legal documents made public on Wednesday.
This was not their first tragedy, as six years prior, they had lost their 29-year-old daughter, who drowned during a fishing expedition.
Motivated by these heartbreaking incidents, the couple began exploring the possibility of using the 61-year-old husband’s sperm to conceive a child through surrogacy. Following the husband’s death at home on December 17, his wife, who remains anonymous due to legal constraints, requested the hospital morgue to preserve his sperm.
However, the hospital’s lack of prompt action, as stated in the legal documents, compelled the woman to urgently seek an order from the Supreme Court of Western Australia. According to researchers, the optimal time to collect reproductive tissue is within one to two days post-death.
Judge Fiona Seaward consented to the sperm being extracted and preserved, but stipulated that additional court orders would be required before it could be used for fertilisation.
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The order was issued on December 21, but only recently became public.
While it’s uncommon, there have been instances in Australia where sperm has been extracted from deceased partners. For instance, in June 2023, an Australian woman received approval to extract sperm from her 29-year-old husband, who allegedly died from a cut artery caused by a shattered window pane. (AFP)