Transfer of fertilized eggs to widow

Egg-ovarian controversy: Transferring the fertilized cells to the widow.
After the dispute between a widow and the Klinikum Neubrandenburg had moved to the fertilized egg cells of the woman up to the Rostock Higher Regional Court, where the woman already got right in May 2010 year, the case has now ended rather unspectacular: The widow took her Oocytes and wanted to be directly fertilized with these directly afterwards.

Eggs already frozen before the death of the man
The then 29-year-old Ines S. and her husband from the Uecker-Randow district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern had already prepared in 2008 for an artificial insemination and freeze sperm-fertilized egg cells and have them stored. The man of Ines S. was killed shortly thereafter, whereupon the widow demanded the publication of the fertilized egg cells from the Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Klinikum Neubrandenburg stored in liquid nitrogen at minus 190 degrees Celsius since March 2008 in order to undergo an artificial insemination , The doctors refused, however, because the Embryo Protection Act prohibits the fertilization of eggs with the semen of a deceased man.

Fertilization process has already begun during the lifetime of the man
In order to fulfill their wish for a child anyway, Ines S. complained first in front of the district court of Neubrandenburg, which rejected the widow's complaint, then in front of the Rostock Higher Regional Court, where the judges ruled in May of this year that the fertilized egg cells had to be handed to her. Because the sperm was one in the lifetime of the man one „intimate connection“ with the egg cell, so that the fertilization process had already begun before the death of the man and the freezing merely represents an interruption of the process, so the judgment of the Higher Regional Court. The chance of a successful artificial insemination with the oocytes is only about 20 percent.

Transfer of the oocytes in 30 minutes
The 30-year-old woman picked up her eggs five months after the verdict last Friday and wanted to go to a clinic in Szczecin, Poland, immediately after artificial insemination. The transfer of the eggs was in relation to the previous dispute rather unspectacular. The doctors gave the widow the container with the nine frozen, fertilized eggs and Professor Roland Sudik, chief physician of the clinic for gynecology and obstetrics at the Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Klinikum said good-bye after about 30 minutes by Ines S .: „I wish you all the best.“ Live here the private broadcaster, the Ines S. had granted the exclusive rights to transfer.

Precedent requires action by the legislature
However, the judgment of the Oberlandesgericht Rostock is to be regarded as a precedent and the judges also see the legislature required to deal with the issue again. For most doctors and other professionals, the current verdict meets with approval and the Göttingen professor of ethics and history of medicine, Claudia Wiesemann, praised that the judges of moral intuition were followed by people and not a subtle interpretation of the text. Also Emil Reisinger, head of the medical faculty Rostock, sees the verdict positively and explained it a reasonable single case decision. (fp, 02.10.2010)