The parents of a 21-year-old army cadet who tragically died in a skiing accident have won the right to use his frozen sperm to produce a child.
Peter Zhu, from California in the USA, died in February and his parents decided to have his sperm extracted while he was kept on life support for organ donation.
A judge ruled that, while there were ethical questions surrounding the process, there were no legal barriers stopping Zhu’s parents producing a child via surrogacy using his sperm, HuffPost reports.
Zhu left no written intention consenting to posthumous procreation, however his parents noted their son wanted several children before his life was sadly cut short.
‘At this time, the court will place no restrictions on the use to which Peter’s parents may ultimately put their son’s sperm, including its potential use for procreative purposes,’ Judge John Colangelo wrote.
‘We are extremely devastated over this freak accident,’ Zhu’s mother Monica Minzhi Yao said. ‘Our pain is something that no words can describe.’
While court cases for posthumous procreation involving parents and not surviving spouses are rare, they are not unheard of.
In 2007, an Iowan court authorised the recovery of a deceased man’s sperm by his parents to donate to his fiance.
And in 2009, a Texas woman received legal permission to have her 21-year-old son’s sperm extracted after his death in order to have a surrogate bear her grandchild.
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