Postmortem sperm procurement: A legal perspective

Purpose: Postmortem sperm procurement with subsequent artificial inseminati on has become a technically feasible method for posthumous conception. A va riety of legal questions exist involving the rights and relationships of th e deceased, his family and his issue. We addressed these questions and desi gned a workable protocol for postmortem sperm procurement. Materials and Methods: MEDLINE, WESTLAW and LEXIS medical literature, and c ase law searches were conducted. United States and international case law, United States (federal and state) statutes, Uniform Law Commissions Acts, a nd law review commentaries and articles were reviewed. Results: While postmortem sperm procurement is being requested throughout t he United States, no standard protocol or procedural guidelines have been e stablished by federal or state statute. Furthermore, the courts have not ye t addressed this specific scenario in reported case law. Statutes and case law do address related factual scenarios and issues, including property rig hts in human bodies, rules governing transplantation of human organs/body p arts, rights of parties in in vivo sperm bank donations and responsibilitie s of parents to the conceptus of artificial insemination, Conclusions: A workable protocol can be established by analyzing case law a nd statutes addressing factually similar scenarios. Urologists must focus o n the express intent of the decedent and limit any postmortem sperm retriev al to the specific requests made by the decedent. Decedent requests should be documented in writing. The decedent must; be competent and of majority a ge. In the absence of decedent expressed affirmative directive calling for sperm retrieval, no other relative or guardian may authorize this retrieval . Issues regarding the legitimacy and inheritance rights of the conceptus w ill most consistently be addressed when explicitly provided for in the will of the decedent.