Israeli Family Harvests Dead Daughter's Eggs
A 17-year-old Israeli girl who died in a car accident earlier this month could be the first woman in history to posthumously become a biological mother. The family of Chen Aida Ayash was granted permission to remove and freeze the dead girl's eggs, according to the Israeli English-language website Haaretz.
Ayash was declared brain dead on August 3rd at the Meir Hospital in Jerusalem. Her parents donated her organs and then obtained a court order to harvest their daughter's eggs. The family originally wanted to fertilize the eggs with donor sperm, but judges denied that request until it could be proved that Chen wanted to have children.
The family has not revealed the motivation for the egg harvest, which took place at the Meir Hospital.
"We don't know the reason why Chen's parents wanted it done. We just received the court order and did the procedure," said Maayan Maor, a spokesperson for the Meir medical centre told the Guardian. "This is a unique case, since this is the first time an Israeli court has approved the extraction and freezing of ovarian eggs from a dead woman."
While there have been several other known cases where familes have harvested the sperm of dead relatives, this is the first reported incident in which a family has extracted a woman's eggs after her death.
What do you think? Should these parents be allowed to harvest and use their daughter's eggs?
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