In 2008 doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital were presented with a novel ethical dilemma. A 36-year-old woman had collapsed on an international flight with a massive heart attack and slipped into a coma. Her husband and relatives agreed that she should be taken off life support and allowed to die. However, the order was suddenly reversed. One of the relatives had been surfing the internet and discovered the possibility of retrieving and freezing her eggs so that the she could have a posthumous child with her husband’s sperm.

This was an unusual case, according to an article in a recent issue of the NEJM. While retrieval of sperm in such circumstances has become a familiar procedure, egg retrieval is almost unheard of. They decided not to proceed because neither the woman (nor her husband) had ever expressed any interest in having children, because she could not consent, because the procedure would not benefit her, and because the protracted egg retrieval procedure might actually kill her. Fortunately the husband agreed.

Evelyne Shuster, of the University of Pennsylvania, told the Boston Globe that she disliked the notion of creating a “souvenir baby”. “To reproduce is to experience the joy of giving birth, of caring and seeing your child develop to become an adult,” She said. “This is nonexistent when you have posthumous birth.” ~ NEJM, July 15; Boston Globe,  July 15