KOLKATA: Only a widow has the right to her dead husband’s sperm, the Calcutta high court has ruled, turning down an appeal by a father to be given his only son’s sperm, which lies preserved in a Delhi sperm bank.
The father had moved the high court in March 2020 saying their daughter-in-law has not only refused to give them her assent to get the sperm but has also refused to acknowledge their pleas. The father feared that if the sperm was destroyed, or unused during the period of agreement with the hospital sperm bank, his family would “lose their clan”.
The HC said the sperm preserved at the Delhi hospital “belonged to the deceased” and, since he was married when he died, “the only other person, apart from the deceased, having any right to it is his wife”. The court added that the “father-son relationship of the petitioner and the deceased does not entail any such right of the petitioner to the progeny of his son”.
The hospital wrote to the father in 2019 saying “that the further usage of sperm, that is, for providing pregnancy to the donor’s wife, donation to someone else or discarding, can be decided only after the permission of the patient’s wife”, and that proof of marriage was required. His son died in 2018.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/only-widow-not-dad-has-right-to-dead-mans-sperm-calcutta-high-court/articleshow/80396053.cms
