Court: Parents Can Freeze Dead Daughter's Eggs

An Israeli court has set what is believed to be a worldwide precedent by giving a family permission to harvest and freeze the eggs of their dead daughter. The 17-year-old girl was declared brain dead a week after she was hit by a car, and the parents had already agreed to donate her organs. The court rejected the family's request to have the eggs fertilized with donated sperm before they were frozen, reports the Guardian.

The key issue in the case was consent, and the girl's family had to prove that she wanted children, according to a lawyer for an Israeli family rights organization. In 2007, the parents of a dead Israeli soldier won a legal battle to be allowed to use his sperm to create a child with a surrogate mother. The girl's case has sparked a major controversy in Israel, and the teen's parents, under pressure from religious conservatives, have decided not to proceed any further with the process, sources tell the Independent. (More reproductive rights stories.)