Doctors have been able to use sperm taken two days after a man's death in a world-first procedure that has created a "happy healthy baby".
Doctors associated with the case say it changed the way they feel about the use of sperm after a man has died, and they hope it will inspire other clinicians to attempt the procedure when they would previously have thought there was no chance it would succeed.
Previously the longest time recorded for sperm taken posthumously that produced a healthy baby was 30 hours – 18 hours less than in this case.
IVF expert Steve Robson, an associate professor at the Australian National University medical school, will report details of the procedure at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists world conference next week.
He said it was the most extraordinary case he had ever been involved with.
"On a professional level this has been, from my perspective, a love story, and it has been incredible to be involved with helping a woman who has so much love and courage," he said. "As a group we were impressed with the amount of love this woman had, and her tremendous endurance against all the obstacles she faced."
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had to fight through the Supreme Court in Adelaide after her husband died suddenly in a motorbike accident. It took two days to get the approvals, and then the procedure had to be undertaken in Canberra because it was illegal in Adelaide.
The ACT is the only place in Australia where sperm from a deceased man can be used without written consent, although both NSW and Victoria do not prohibit women from using the sperm if it is taken interstate.
In South Australia, sperm can only be used posthumously if it is taken prior to death, however, in the woman's case she was able to prove she and her husband had been planning to have a baby, leading the court to order the sperm could be collected.
Associate Professor Robson said there had been fears sperm taken after death could have its DNA damaged, but this case had shown this did not occur. In fact,the woman had fallen pregnant at the first attempt, and now had a healthy one-year-old child.
Gynaecologist and infertility specialist Kelton Tremellen, who collected the sperm from the woman's husband, said he had initially been ambivalent about being involved.
"One reason was that I thought it was going to be a waste of time, and the other was I didn't know if it was the right thing to do," he said. "But this lady had asked many of the doctors in Adelaide to do it and they had all declined.
"In the end I decided I would do it because I felt it wasn't a battle she should have to fight at that point when she had just lost her husband... and the evidence suggests that the majority of widows don't go on to use the sperm they collect".
He said many people would probably think that it was "Frankenstein medicine" to take sperm from a dead man. When the Supreme Court victory was reported in South Australia, some conservative groups said it was unethical.
"Deliberately conceiving a child without a father is an action to fulfil the wishes of adults, rather than the best interests of the child," said Family Voice Australia national research officer Ros Phillips.
But Professor Tremellen said he had come to the conclusion that "if the mother and child are happy and the child is healthy, then their opinion isn't really relevant."
He said there was no evidence that the children suffered any negative physical consequences.
"Whether they are harmed mentally is an open point, as there really haven't been enough children born long enough to know," he said. "But it's a bit hard to make the argument that a child is going to be worse off being born than not."
He said since being involved with case, and going on to study the ethical issues involved, he had come to the conclusion that written consent should not be needed to collect sperm posthumously.
"The reality is that the vast majority of young men don't consider that they are going to die, and certainly not that their sperm might be used by their widows, so it's unreasonable to say it can't go ahead without written consent," he said.
"If the woman is making a sound decision and can look after the child and has support from her family, I really don't think society or the law should get in the way."
Associate Professor Robson said knowing how "precious and loved" this baby was, he wanted to report the details of the case in order to give hope to women who had been through the traumatic loss of a loved one, and their doctors.
"I can't even say where there's life there's hope – perhaps just where there's hope, there's hope," he said.
