1. Dead husband’s sperm used to have second baby.
Diane Blood has had a second baby using her dead husband's sperm. She already has a three year old son by her husband, Stephen, who died from bacterial meningitis after falling into a coma in February After he died, Mrs Blood waged a three year battle to be allowed to conceive her first child, Liam, using his frozen sperm, which was collected while he was in the coma. The law had said that she could not be inseminated because Mr Blood had not given written permission for his sperm to be used.
July 2002
Couple at war over frozen embryos
The ethical debate over the “ownership of test tube embryos was dramatically re-ignited last night. In the second case this month, police worker Lorraine Hadley, 37, is considering legal action to her ex-husband, Wayne, destroying eggs frozen during IVF treatment.
She said “I cannot believe he is willing to destroy his own flesh and blood and, in doing so, destroy all my dreams.” she told how she and Mr Hadley had fertility treatment more than two years ago after doctors found she had a condition which left her unable to conceive naturally. The couple’s first attempt to create a child failed but two fertilized eggs were frozen for them to try again. Three months later, however, Mr Hadley, 31, walked out of their home for another woman.
The law governing fertility clinics says both partners must consent before treatment goes ahead. If either withdraws permission, clinics are legally obliged to destroy the frozen embryos.
The Daily Mail, 10 August 2002
Gay couple become fathers
Two babies have become the first British children to be registered with two fathers and no mother. The twins, Aspen and his sister Saffron, were born in a Californian hospital on Thursday with their parents – gay partners Barrie Drewitt and Tony Barlow – looking on.
The couple, reportedly the first gay couple in Britain to father its own children using in vitro fertilisation, is still facing a legal battle to register the twins as British citizens. They spent £200,000 arranging a surrogate birth with an American mother after an application to adopt a child in Britain was rejected. Rosalind Bellamy , 32, had the embryos formed from another woman’s eggs and the sperm of one of the men placed in her uterus. Both men have had DNA tests to show who is the biological father, but they say they will not tell the twins until the time is right.
There was a mixed reaction when news of the couple’s legal victory emerged, with lesbian and gay lobbying group, Stonewall, saying it hoped UK courts would follow the example of the US judge. But the Bishop of Southwark, the Rt. Revd. Tom Butler, said the arrangement was another example of the development of the “designer child.”
12 December 1999
Should designer babies be allowed?
A British family has been allowed to use IVF to create a child whose cells could cure a sick brother.
The British Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority has allowed the Hashmi family to use IVF to create a child who would be a suitable bone marrow donor for their son Zain, who has thalassaemia, a rare blood disorder. Zain is likely to die without a transplant.
Opponents say that the authority has given the go-ahead for a designer baby to be created and used for spare parts and that this is just another case of humans playing with the natural order of things. By manufacturing humans for someone else’s ends we instantly make human life into a commodity. Paul Tillby of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children fears that “the selection of an embryo in this way brings us to the brink of genetic manipulation.” Some fear for the psychological health of the new child. What will he or she feel when they discover why they were created? Do the parents actually want another baby, and will they value it the same as his or her brother.
Others say that this situation creates no moral dilemmas as it is clearly about saving another child’s life.
February 2002