Israeli court allows family to extract eggs from dead daughter

Jerusalem, Aug 9: In a landmark ruling, an Israeli court has allowed a family to extract eggs from the ovaries of their dead daughter, a media report said.

The family of Chen Aida Ayash, a 17-year-old schoolgirl who died in a car mishap a week-and-a-half back, was granted permission to have her eggs harvested and frozen, Haaretz newspaper reported.

A medical source, familiar with the case, told the newspaper that Ayash's family had wanted to fertilise the eggs with donated sperm and freeze them as embryos, after donating her organs for transplant. But Kfar Sava's Meir Hospital had refused to fertilise the eggs without a court order.

Though the court ruled that her eggs could be extracted, the judge declined a petition for them to be fertilised with donated sperm, at least for the time being -- though they could still be fertilised at a later stage.

Frozen embryos have a greater chance of ultimately producing a child. Approval is only likely to be given if Ayash's family can prove that she wanted to have children. Her age could prove a contentious factor, the report said.

The ruling raises the possibility that a mother could give birth after her death. Few countries have laws covering posthumous egg harvesting. And, there have been dozens of such cases in the US alone.

PTI