Mum,60, told: you CAN have baby for your dead daughter
She’ll have her own grandchild
A WOMAN of 60 has been granted permission to use her dead daughter’s frozen eggs to give birth to her own grandchild after a five-year legal battle.
In a world first, she has been allowed to use the eggs for IVF treatment following an ‘exceptional and unique’ decision by the UK’s fertility regulator.
If the treatment is successful, the woman, who for legal reasons can only be identified as Mrs M, will give birth next year – six years after her daughter died from bowel cancer at the age of 29.
The Mail broke the story of the couple’s legal battle in February last year, after discovering details of the
‘They are just on ice, aren’t they Mum?’
case in Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority documents. They showed Mrs M and her husband had applied for permission to use their late daughter’s eggs after her death in 2011, only to be turned down.
They tried again – twice – in 2014. The authority concluded there was insufficient written evidence that their daughter had consented.
When all three applications were rejected, the couple went to the High Court – which threw the case out. Undeterred, they took the matter to the Appeal Court, which dramatically overturned the High Court’s verdict in June.
Their barrister, Jenni Richards QC, told the court that the young woman had asked her mother to ‘carry my babies’. On another occasion, she told a pregnant cousin visiting her in hospital that she already had babies, saying: ‘They are just on ice, aren’t they Mum?’
The Appeal Court did not itself grant approval, only ordering the HFEA to consider the matter afresh.
A committee of experts at the regulator concluded that it was ‘inherently improbable’ that the couple’s daughter would have objected to her mother carrying her child. They issued a special direction allowing the couple to export three of their daughter’s eggs to a New York clinic where Mrs M will have IVF treatment.
Last night, Mrs M told the Mail: ‘We would like to give our sincere thanks to the judges and are very pleased that the HFEA have agreed to release our beloved daughter’s eggs.’