The British woman, who is aged 60 but who has not been named for protection purposes, was originally refused the right to use the eggs of her deceased daughter for the purpose of in vitro fertilization. Her bid to use the eggs was rejected by a U.K. regulatory agency called the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The rejection took place in 2014.
Since then the woman has mounted a series of legal challenges. Her battle eventually went all the way to one of the U.K.’s highest courts — the Court of Appeal. Back in 2015, the case had been blocked by a High Court. The basis of the legal challenge, taken by the mother, was that the decision infringed her family’s human rights.
The reason why the regulatory agency made its original decision in 2014 was because the woman’s daughter had not given her written consent before she died of bowel cancer at the age of 28 in 2011. Before she died, the daughter had some eggs removed and placed in storage in a freezer of a clinic in London. While the daughter expressed hope that her eggs might one day be fertilized she did not state an intended person to carry the baby and to give birth.
At the Court of Appeal the mother, reported as “Mrs. M”, said that her daughter had told her verbally, just before she died, that she wished her to carry her eggs and to give birth. This was, the BBC reports, supported and it has instructed the regulatory body to review the case with a view to releasing the eggs to the mother. The case was reviewed by Sir James Munby, Lady Justice Arden and Lord Justice Burnett.
With the Court of Appeal decision having gone through on June 30, 2016, the woman is now set to become a mother again, giving birth to her own grandchild, at the advanced age of 60. This would become a landmark event, for she would become the first person in the world to become pregnant using a dead daughter’s eggs. For this to happen, the mother will need to travel to the U.S. in order to find a clinic willing to perform such an intervention.
The decision is not overwhelmingly supported on social media. For instance, Twitter user Constable Chaos (@ConstableChaos) tweeted: “I foretell a child that will grow up very confused”; and journalist Shelagh Fogarty (@ShelaghFogarty) simply messaged: “Yep….we’ve all gone mad.”
