Posthumous storage and use of sperm and embryos: survey of opinion of treatment centres

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Abstract
The ability to freeze-store the semen of men who are about to undergo treatment that will sterilise them or to store extra embryos resulting from in vitro fertilisation poses special ethical dilemmas. These include a woman's request to conceive a child after the death of her husband and a man's to have embryos carried by a surrogate mother if his wife has died (storage of unfertilised oocytes is not yet practicable). The issues are complex.1 We see that the desire for posthumous conception is a loving expression in memory of the lost spouse, but the offspring has no such memory. In our centre we therefore refuse posthumous treatment and require patients to consent to this policy in advance of storage of sperm or embryos. Circulated guidance from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, however, disallows our policy or requires that …

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