A slain New York Police Department detective’s widow gave birth to his daughter more than two years after he was killed on duty.
The police department announced the birth on Facebook Wednesday, dubbing baby Angelina an “NYPD angel.”
Pei Xia Chen, also referred to as Sanny, became pregnant with her daughter through IVF treatment after her husband Wenjian Liu’s sperm was collected the night he died in December 2014.
“The night of the incident, she requested that her husband’s semen be preserved, so that she might, one day, have his child,” NYPD wrote on Facebook. “The night after Detective Liu passed away, she had a dream, in which he handed her a baby girl.”
The NYPD went on to explain that the slain officer’s legacy will “live on” with his daughter.
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“Sanny can’t wait to tell Angelina that her father was a hero.”
While Chen was able to conceive and give birth to her dead husband’s child, the issue of posthumous conception is a controversial one.
The first case of posthumous sperm retrieval (PSR) occurred in 1980, and it’s still a rare procedure, according to Health.com. It also comes with numerous ethical quandaries such as the consent and rights of the deceased.
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However, there are no official regulations surrounding the practice in the United States.
The issue is more complicated in Britain, where technicalities over the rules have led several widows to fight in court over the issue.
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