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Life after death

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04 April 2014 / Jonathan Herring
Issue: 7601 / Categories: Features , Family
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Jonathan Herring explores a clear case of compassion from the courts
It was one of those cases where the correct result seemed obvious, but the law stood in the way. A grieving widow wanted to store her dead husband’s sperm so that one day she might have the child they had planned together. It would have been a hard hearted judge who stuck to the letter of the law and denied her application. Mrs Justice Hogg in Warren v Care Fertility (Northampton) Limited [2014] EWHC 602 (Fam), [2014] All ER (D) 65 (Mar) was able to see a way through the legal quagmire to produce the compassionate result.

 

Tragic circumstances

Warren Brewer had died on 7 February 2012 at the tragically young age of 32 from a brain tumour. When he commenced radiotherapy for treatment of the tumour in 2005 his consultant referred him to the Care Fertility Clinic in Northampton so that samples of his sperm could be taken and frozen for use in future reproduction. He signed the clinic’s standard consent

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