Philosophy
A dead girl's ovarian eggs, a sperm donor, biological father...how can the parent's decision be legitimate?
An Israeli family has been given legal permission to extract and freeze eggs from the ovaries of their 17-year-old daughter, who died in a road accident.
The ruling by the magistrates court in the town of Kfar Sava sets a legal precedent in Israel and, according to a lawyer with 10 years experience in similar cases, is possibly the first of its kind in the world.
According to the Ha'aretz news organisation, the family of Chen Aida Ayash agreed for her organs to be donated following her death a week after she was hit by a car. She was declared brain dead on Wednesday.
They also petitioned the court in Kfar Sava, where they live, for permission for her eggs to be harvested and frozen.
Ha'aretz quoted a medical source as saying the family had requested that the eggs be fertilised with donated sperm, as embryos stand a better chance of surviving the freezing procedure than unfertilised eggs, but the court denied permission for fertilisation at this stage.
Maayan Maor, a spokesperson for the Meir medical centre, Kfar Sava, confirmed that the procedure had taken place.
"This is a unique case, since this is the first time an Israeli court has approved the extraction and freezing of ovarian eggs from a dead woman," she told the Guardian.
"We don't know the reason why Chen's parents wanted it done. We just received the court order and did the procedure."
The Ayash family has made no public comment.
According to Irit Rosenblum, a lawyer who founded New Family, an Israeli organisation that promotes family rights, the key issue is consent. "We don't know if [Ayash] was concerned about continuation," she said adding that even though the girl was only 17, she may have expressed a desire to bear children. "If [the family] can prove the fact that she wanted children, I see no reason why not to allow this."
There have been many precedents of sperm being extracted after death to allow a dead man's widow or partner to conceive his child. Courts have insisted that petitioners must be able to show the man wanted to become a father.
In 2007, the Israeli parents of a deceased soldier won a legal battle to be allowed to use his sperm, which was extracted post mortem, to create a child with an identified surrogate mother. Earlier this year, another Israeli family embarked on a legal battle to be allowed to use their dead son's sperm to produce a grandchild, although they had no surrogate standing by.
Rosenblum argued that a condition of creating a child from Ayash's eggs must be that "the resulting child be brought up by his or her biological father". She said it was better for a child to know its "biological legacy" than to be created by anonymous donor sperm or eggs.
Rosenblum cited a recent case in which a couple created embryos through IVF treatment, but the woman later discovered she had cancer. Two years after her death, the man wanted to fulfil his pledge to create a child, but Israeli law meant he had to use a surrogate mother in the US. "It was the first case in the world of a child being born long after the death of its biological mother," Rosenblum said.
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Philosophy
Bizarre and quite unusual
A dead girl's ovarian eggs, a sperm donor, biological father...how can the parent's decision be legitimate?
"Israeli family can freeze eggs of daughter killed in road accident"
Court ruling sets legal precedent in Israel and is possibly first of its kind in world
by
Harriet Sherwood
August 8th, 2011
guardian.co.uk
Court ruling sets legal precedent in Israel and is possibly first of its kind in world
by
Harriet Sherwood
August 8th, 2011
guardian.co.uk
An Israeli family has been given legal permission to extract and freeze eggs from the ovaries of their 17-year-old daughter, who died in a road accident.
The ruling by the magistrates court in the town of Kfar Sava sets a legal precedent in Israel and, according to a lawyer with 10 years experience in similar cases, is possibly the first of its kind in the world.
According to the Ha'aretz news organisation, the family of Chen Aida Ayash agreed for her organs to be donated following her death a week after she was hit by a car. She was declared brain dead on Wednesday.
They also petitioned the court in Kfar Sava, where they live, for permission for her eggs to be harvested and frozen.
Ha'aretz quoted a medical source as saying the family had requested that the eggs be fertilised with donated sperm, as embryos stand a better chance of surviving the freezing procedure than unfertilised eggs, but the court denied permission for fertilisation at this stage.
Maayan Maor, a spokesperson for the Meir medical centre, Kfar Sava, confirmed that the procedure had taken place.
"This is a unique case, since this is the first time an Israeli court has approved the extraction and freezing of ovarian eggs from a dead woman," she told the Guardian.
"We don't know the reason why Chen's parents wanted it done. We just received the court order and did the procedure."
The Ayash family has made no public comment.
According to Irit Rosenblum, a lawyer who founded New Family, an Israeli organisation that promotes family rights, the key issue is consent. "We don't know if [Ayash] was concerned about continuation," she said adding that even though the girl was only 17, she may have expressed a desire to bear children. "If [the family] can prove the fact that she wanted children, I see no reason why not to allow this."
There have been many precedents of sperm being extracted after death to allow a dead man's widow or partner to conceive his child. Courts have insisted that petitioners must be able to show the man wanted to become a father.
In 2007, the Israeli parents of a deceased soldier won a legal battle to be allowed to use his sperm, which was extracted post mortem, to create a child with an identified surrogate mother. Earlier this year, another Israeli family embarked on a legal battle to be allowed to use their dead son's sperm to produce a grandchild, although they had no surrogate standing by.
Rosenblum argued that a condition of creating a child from Ayash's eggs must be that "the resulting child be brought up by his or her biological father". She said it was better for a child to know its "biological legacy" than to be created by anonymous donor sperm or eggs.
Rosenblum cited a recent case in which a couple created embryos through IVF treatment, but the woman later discovered she had cancer. Two years after her death, the man wanted to fulfil his pledge to create a child, but Israeli law meant he had to use a surrogate mother in the US. "It was the first case in the world of a child being born long after the death of its biological mother," Rosenblum said.
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I want to officially retract a claim I made last week about the moral blandness of questions around IVF. No sooner had I made the claim than a senior thesis writer had us considering what one philosopher calls "symbolic incest." In Britain, cases of IVF...
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Posted by confused, maybe not I had a recent (fun) argument with an ex-girlfriend. We were talking when a male friend approached and announced that he and his wife were pregnant. After a brief stop and chat, he left and I said, Me: ?I hate it when men...
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"Caplan: The case against care for those who are brain dead" by Arthur Caplan January 9th, 2014 Newsday Thirteen-year-old Jahi McMath died on Dec. 12 at Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland. Yet about a month later, Jahi is still on...
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"Swiss bank to lift lid on hidden Kafka works" by Imogen Foulkes July 19th, 2010 BBC News Safe deposit boxes believed to contain manuscripts and drawings by the late author Franz Kafka are due to be opened at a bank in Zurich. The move is the latest...