Is it Ethical to Retrieve Eggs from Comatose Women?

In 2008, a 36-year-old woman had a heart attack and slipped into a coma. One of her relatives discovered the possibility of retrieving her eggs so that she and her husband could have a posthumous child. Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital weren’t sure whether or not this would be ethical. Luckily the family decided not to proceed with the experiment.

Retrieval of sperm in these situations has become more common, but retrieval of eggs is almost unheard of.  When asked for her opinion about the situation, Evelyne Shuster, of the University of Pennsylvania, stated that “[t]o reproduce is to experience the joy of giving birth, of caring and seeing your child develop to become an adult. This is nonexistent when you have a posthumous birth.”

Michael Cook, May Doctors Ethically Retrieve Eggs From Comatose Women?, BioEdge, July 31, 2010.