A HIGH Court judge yesterday reserved judgment on the plea by a young widow for the right to have a baby using her dead husband's sperm.
The woman, referred to only as Mrs B for legal reasons, wants to be artificially inseminated with sperm taken from her husband, Stephen, at her request in March last year while he was in a coma at Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital after being fatally stricken by bacterial meningitis.
But the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has refused to give permission because the husband gave no written consent, and it says Mrs B cannot take the sperm abroad.
Mrs B's counsel, Lord Lester QC, said yesterday that her right to have a child by her husband was protected by the European Human Rights Convention and was not destroyed by his death.
The HFEA undoubtedly had power to make an exception to its no written consent" policy and its refusal to do so was "irrational, unreasonable and oppressive", he told the High Court Family Division.
Mrs B had a fundamental right under EU law to be provided with the medical services she sought in another member state, be said. A Belgian clinic was willing to provide the services and there was no evidence that the health and welfare of mother and child would be at risk, be added.