First live birth from dead man's sperm

The first baby born as a result of sperm taken from an already dead man was successfully delivered in Los Angeles earlier this month. Gaby Vernoff had become pregnant using sperm that had been taken from her husband Bruce, 30 hours after his unexpected death in 1995.

The procedure, which is illegal in Britain, was performed by urologist Cappy Rothman, who said that he had extracted sperm at least a dozen times from dead men, but that this case was the first in which the extracted sperm was actually used to fertilise the woman's eggs. Mrs Vernoff became pregnant after two attempts at embryo transfer.

In Britain, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act requires written consent from a man if his sperm is to be used after his death. Lacking this consent, Diane Blood famously took her case to the Court of Appeal where she won the right to be treated abroad. But the absence in the US of any legislation governing posthumous births has led to some concern. Roy Goodman, a Republican state senator, has placed a Bill before New York state legislature requiring prior written consent in such cases. Due to the untimely nature of Mr Vernoff's death, no such formal consent was able to be obtained, but Dr Rothman said that Mrs Vernoff had a video of her husband expressing his desire to have children.