Pity a poor baby born to its own grandmother

ABritish woman who wants to use her dead daughter’s frozen eggs to give birth to her own grandchild has persuaded judges at the Court of Appeal in London to allow her to continue a five-year legal battle.

if she and her 58-year-old husband are granted permission to use the frozen eggs, which are stored in a clinic, it will surely be the first time in the world that a woman would give birth to her dead child’s baby — a baby who would also be her own grandchild.

if she wins the next hearing, she will be around 61 (at least) when she gets pregnant. it might eventually be rubber-stamped as legal by the courts — but is it right?

Despite all the heartache that this family, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have suffered, i would have to say ‘No’. i don’t think so.

there is much talk about the rights of the grandparents and the rights of the daughter who desperately wanted her genes to carry on — but no one seems to think about the child and

the impact these circumstances would have on his or her life.

A mother’s egg, fertilised anonymously in a foreign sperm bank, then carried to term and birthed by granny? A cupcake baby baked to order in a whip of misbegotten ingredients and sugar-coated in legal niceties?

What impact would that have on a person’s psyche or emotional wellbeing in the future? Nobody knows — but I would hazard a guess that it would not be entirely positive.

This is a case with no winners, a situation wreathed in sadness and bereavement. The couple’s daughter was 28 when she died in 2011; a practical and plan-ahead girl who had frozen her eggs five years previously when she was diagnosed with cancer.

on her deathbed, she allegedly told her mother: ‘I want you to carry my babies. I want you and Dad to bring them up. They will be safe with you. I could not have had better parents.’

HoWeveR, the Human Fertilisation and embryology Authority ( HFeA) has refused to release the eggs because the daughter had not provided full written permission — and this is the legal sticking point that the prolonged case has hinged upon.

one can only imagine the heartache of the parents; a grief solidifying into obsession, a determination to carry out their girl’s last wishes. And also, yes, to have a much-longed-for grand- child. Two big emotional hits in one cute, gurgling package.

It must have seemed an irresistible proposition, a comfort and a blessing, a golden spark of joy among the relentless, grey landscape of grief. But at what cost?

The laws on fertility and embryology in this country are among the most liberal and enlightened in the world, but sometimes I wonder if a tougher line should be drawn.

especially when someone such as the singer Joss Stone trills on about freezing her eggs as if it was something you did between plugging in your curling tongs and ordering something nice and floaty on Net-a-Porter.

‘I was like, let me just check this out because I think my eggs are getting old,’ said the 28-year old in an interview this week. ‘I speak to a lot of career-women who say you don’t want to get to 32 and realise, s***.’

Without doubt, egg-freezing is a solace and a godsend for women who may have fertility problems, prema- ture ovarian failure or are unlucky enough to have been given a cancer diagnosis. It is also a comfort for those women who want to preserve their ability to have children until a more propitious time to become a mother.

All well and good, for reproductive freedom is one of modern woman’s most cherished freedoms. Yet sometimes I feel uneasy that the advance of science leads to more complicated moral quandaries than it ever solves.

especially when putative mothers use its power so lightly; put their careers first, backpack around Thailand for five years, for example, release a new album, wait until they have made the payments on the Conran sofa — then go back and have a baby with a farm fresh egg. Maybe.

In this case, the aged, putative parents have explained to the courts that they see the eggs as ‘living entities in limbo waiting to be born’.

No, they are just eggs. It is wrong and emotional coercing to start putting bonnets on them already.

While one can have sympathy for this couple and their loss, one thing they will not be able to do, is cryogenically freeze themselves.

Their advancing age is against them as parents, which means that this poor child would be condemned to grow up alone or to be brought up by strangers or — and this is the best-case scenario — to spend much of a young life being a carer to its ageing grandparents.

Dreams might be coming true for some members of this benighted family — but they won’t belong to baby.