By Isobel Roe.
A Toowoomba woman has been granted legal permission to remove her late fiance’s testes in the hope of having a child.
The day after the man died unexpectedly in mid-April the woman lodged an urgent application in the Supreme Court to have his testes removed so she could one day use the sperm.
The court was given several sworn affadavits from the couple’s friends, who said they had “made no secret” of their wish for a child.
The pair met in September 2015 and were engaged a month later.
They planned to get married this year and had already begun trying to conceive.
In making his decision, Justice Martin Burns said the testes had to be removed within 24 hours of death if the sperm were to ever be used.
“Those orders will… permit mature reflection … whether to proceed with the use of any extracted material,” he said.
“If an application for use for the purposes of fertilisation is made, the orders proposed today will ensure that such an application will not be rendered futile.”
Lawyers representing the deceased man and his parents did not oppose the application.
The court ruled the man’s testes were to be kept at an IVF facility of the woman’s choice.
She must make a second application to the court before she’s allowed to use the sperm.
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
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I think most men think a bit differently about this kind of thing than women do. E.g. sperm donation versus egg donation. I have discussed it at some length with my partner.
We recently did IVF. We had to go through counselling, and also sign certain consent forms. One was what to do with embryos in the case of the other person's passing. We both agreed the other person could use the embryos if it came to that. We also discussed that if we split up, he would be willing to donate the embryos to me to use. And we've discussed what to do with any remaining, unused embryos. He is OK to donate them to a family, while I feel I'd prefer them to go to science. He is fine with sperm donation, while I don't think donating eggs to someone would have been for me, even though I think it is amazing that people do this. Overall, while my partner wants children with me, if for whatever reason he wasn't around, he wants me to have my dream of motherhood regardless. These discussions and thoughts have surprised me throughout our experience. I asked him about his views and he was like 'why wouldn't I?'
This is not a good idea.