Post Mortem Sperm Retrieval to get the legal nod soon?

AIIMS receives requests of all kinds from the kin of patients and the deceased. But this week, AIIMS received an unusual request from the widow of a dead man, who requested the doctors to retrieve the sperms from the body of her husband so that she can bear a child later on. The question of Post Mortem Sperm Retrieval (PMSR) has been relevant in many of the developed nations and is soon catching on with the developing nations too, such as India. The couple had been married just a few years and did not have a child. “ The parents of the man were also willing and supported her request,“ said a doctor. The request had to be rejected as there are no clear guidelines on postmortem sperm retrieval (PMSR) in the country. Citing the case in an article published in the latest issue of the Journal of Human Reproductive Sciences, AIIMS doctors have sought clarity on PMSR to avoid such a predicament in the future. “ Time has come to have guidelines about the procedures to collect sperm posthumously , to preserve them and to effectively use them with maximum benefits to the individual as well as society,“ the doctors argue. According to Dr Sudhir Gupta, head of AIIMS's forensic sciences department, sperm can survive inside the testicular cavity for almost a day after death. “ Retrieval is a simple process. It can be done within five minutes by dissecting the testis and extracting the sperm. But there are ethical and legal issues involved,“ he said. The guidelines for assisted reproductive tech nology (ART) clinics in India allow insemination of a woman with a dead husband's semen. However, the sperm must be collected while the husband is alive and in sound mind. Israel allows removal of sperm from a dead man's body at the request of his wife and allows transfer of the sperm to the wife within a year of the husband's death, even in the absence of his consent. If the wife dies, the sperm cannot be used. In a 2006 article in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, leading forensic experts Rajesh V Bardale and P G Dixit had predicted a possible rise in demand for PRSM.They, however, argued that any decision on this would have to be thought out in detail since the situation in India was more complex than in developed countries. “ It might be a difficult time for a widow to make a rational decision. Pressure from the family may complicate the situation. The problem is compounded by the time limitation for collecting the sperm, which might require a quick decision,“ they pointed out.

OUR TAKE

With technology moving so far ahead, it is difficult to imagine a world without newer technology every single day. The PMSR law in various countries are there in place because of strong view-points on the help technology provides in the medical field. Implementing the same in a country like India will have it's own complication. Therefore, the details of the law needs to be chalked out in detail much earlier and only then could debate be possible on actually bringing this out as a law.