Woman Loses Bid To Have Baby Using Dead Daughter's Eggs

An unnamed 59-year-old mother and her husband, 58, challenged an independent regulator's refusal to allow them to take the eggs of their "much-loved and only child" to a US fertility treatment clinic.

Believed to be the first case of its kind, the couple referred to in London’s High Court as ‘Mr and Mrs M’ said their cancer victim daughter “A” was desperate to have children and asked her mother to "carry my babies" once she knew she had no hope of surviving her illness.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) says A, who died in 2011, did not give her full written consent.

The daughter completed a form giving consent for her eggs to be stored for use after her death but she failed to fill in a separate form which indicated how she wished the eggs to be used, the court heard.

The couple told Mr Justice Ouseley, their daughter would have been "devastated" if she had known her eggs could not be used.

In a statement, Mrs M said that her daughter had her eggs frozen following her bowel cancer diagnosis at the age of 23 and asked her mother to act as surrogate hoping she would recover.

The statement said A had “suffered terribly” but “wanted her genes to be carried forward after her death” and regarded the eggs as “living entities in limbo waiting to be born”.

Mrs M stated her daughter had told her: “I want you to carry my babies. I didn't go through IVF to save my eggs for nothing.”

Catherine Callaghan, appearing for the HFEA, said: “There may be a natural human temptation to give the claimants what they are seeking but the court should be very reluctant to assume that, because this is the proposed course the claimants want, it must inherently follow that it was also what the daughter wanted in the absence of clear evidence to that effect."

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