British woman wants to give birth to dead daughter’s baby

A 60-year-old British woman is one step closer to using frozen eggs from her dead daughter to give birth to her own grandchild.

According to the Daily Mail, the woman, only known as Mrs. M, won an appeal last week in Britain’s second-highest court, that could allow her to fly to the U.S. to undergo in vitro fertilization using her daughter’s eggs, six years after she died.

According to court documents, Mrs. M said it was her late daughter’s wish for her mother to carry her own grandchild. Her daughter (who is referred to as “A”) died of cancer when she was 28 after spending much of her last five years in hospital.

However, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), refused to allow Mrs. M to remove A’s eggs as her daughter never gave consent. The HFEA argued A did not fill out a specific form detailing how her eggs could be used, including IVF and sperm from a donor.

Last week, the judge ruled there was enough evidence that A had given full consent for her mother to use her eggs to have and raise her own grandchild.

According to The Telegraph, Catherine Callaghan, counsel for the HFEA, argued that it wasn’t for the court to decide if it was ethical for Mrs. M to use her daughter’s eggs “rather, its role is to determine whether Mr. Justice Ouseley erred in concluding that the HFEA’s statutory approvals committee acted lawfully and rationally in exercising its broad discretion to refuse to authorise export of the frozen eggs to a treatment centre in New York for use in the way proposed.”

The HFEA said it will look at the case again to decide on releasing the eggs. A source told the Daily Mail it was unlikely the HFEA would go against the appeal ruling.

“The decision-making committee will have to meet again as soon as possible, taking into consideration the Court of Appeal’s recommendations and guidance. It will make a new decision based on that,” the British newspaper quoted the source as saying.