India’s High Court recently ruled that a deceased man’s parents may use his preserved sperm for reproductive purposes, according to the BBC.
The deceased man’s mother, Harbir Kaur, told the BBC she and her husband were “delighted” and that they had plans for their son’s sister to be a surrogate mother for his child — their grandchild.
“He loved his sisters and was much loved by his friends. He is the screensaver on my phone. I start my day by looking at his face every morning,” said Mrs. Kaur, adding, “We will keep it in the family.”
Kaur’s son, Preet Inder Singh, 30, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in June of 2020. Because Preet was unmarried and the disease and its treatment were likely to affect his reproductive faculties, the hospital where he was being treated recommended storing his semen. Preet did so, and sadly passed away on September 1 of the same year.
When the grieving parents tried to retrieve their son’s genetic material, they were rebuffed by the hospital. The hospital told the man’s parents that the law only permitted the semen to be released to the spouse of the deceased.
“The policy stated that gametes can be released only to a spouse and there was no policy in place,” the hospital’s lawyer Anurag Bindal said, according to the Indian Express. “In terms of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act 2021, no statutory guidelines have been placed in respect of disposal/utilization of semen samples of [an] unmarried person.”
In recent years, India’s laws regarding IVF and surrogacy have been evolving, mostly to combat the rise in predatory surrogacy. The Assisted Reproductive Technology Regulation Act outlawed paying for the practice, but left room for so-called “altruistic” surrogacy by married women ages 25-35, with one child of their own already.
Despite the country’s effort to curb the fertility industry, IVF is still largely poorly regulated worldwide, and the risks of donating eggs and undergoing hormonal treatments are frequently not well-explained.
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Preet Singh’s parents brought the matter of the hospital’s refusal to the High Court, who ruled that the son’s semen is property that can be released to his parents for purposes of posthumous reproduction, as the consent form he signed implies he was aware and consented to his parents’ wishes. Additionally, Justice Prathiba M. Singh ruled that the parents being allowed to create grandchildren with their dead son’s sperm was an extension of the dead son’s reproductive autonomy and should be respected under the Indian constitution.
Lastly, Judge Singh ruled that grandparents are “equally capable of bringing up their grandchildren in a manner so as to integrate them into society…” the ruling reads, according to the Indian Express. “ In the present case, the proposed child may be born through an identified surrogate mother or by fertilization of the sperm with a consenting lady who may be identified by the petitioners through IVF.”
As Live Action News has reported, a similar battle was fought recently in Australia when a 62-year-old woman fought to retrieve her deceased husband’s sperm, also for the purposes of posthumous reproduction. In 2023, a Spanish actress also created a baby via a surrogate with her dead son’s sperm, at 68 years old.
With profit as the main driver of the IVF industry, patients are frequently not ethically screened. The case of a 74-year-old woman in India in 2019 made headlines when she gave birth to twins via IVF, drawing moral criticism from around the globe.
In the process of creating an embryo with Singh’s sperm in a lab, many babies could be discarded — at a higher rate than abortion — or frozen indefinitely. Frequently if too many babies survive implantation, they are “selectively reduced” via abortion.
Ultimately, babies are not commodities to be bought and sold. They are humans — people who have a right to a mother and a father and a right to life. Every baby is to be loved and celebrated, but IVF is not a kind, loving, or moral way of bringing them into the world.
