Widow to attempt pregnancy by husband who died in US

A widow's fight to have a child by her dead husband was thrown into relief yesterday as another bereaved wife revealed plans to have insemination treatment in the United States without facing legal restrictions.

Sandra Reed, from west London, whose husband Danny died on their honeymoon, plans to have a baby using his sperm even though it was taken from his body without his consent. Because he died in Florida, the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which insists on written consent in such circumstances, does not apply.

The case contrasts with the dilemma facing the West Midlands woman known as DB, who will learn on Thursday whether she has succeeded in her court battle to conceive using sperm taken from her late husband when he was unconscious. Although she and her husband had discussed artificial insemination, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) barred the use of his sperm either in Britain or abroad because he had not given consent in writing.

If Mrs B had been informed by hospital staff of the significance of written consent in cases where the father has died, she could have sought to be inseminated with the sperm before her husband's life support machine was switched off.

Mrs Reed is spared the British restrictions because her husband died hours before they were due to fly home from honeymoon. Danny Reed, a 24-year-old motor mechanic,died in an Orlando hospital of a brain haemorrhage.

In what many British fertility specialists are likely to view as another clear distinction between the two cases, the sperm was not taken from Mr Reed's body until seven hours after he was pronounced dead on 2 September.

The extraction of sperm was carried out by Dr Mark Jutras, the fertility specialist who pioneered the treatment two years ago.

Dr Jutras asked Mrs Reed, 28, to wait six months before making up her mind about having the treatment. But she says: "We dearly wanted a child ... I want part of my husband to live on. If I don't have his child now, I would regret it for the rest of my life."

Mrs Reed's experience will reopen arguments that the written consent rule in the UK can operate too harshly and has been applied too narrowly in Mrs B's case, where the husband's wishes seemed to be known. But fertility experts yesterday emphasised the 1990 Act's insistence on counselling - including consideration of the welfare of any child - without which written consent would be invalid.

Susan Rice, chief executive of Issue, the national fertility association, said she had sympathy for Mrs B but added: "We don't think it would be very sensible if the Act, which went through a lengthy process in Parliament, was begun to be unpicked on the basis of one or two cases." Ms Rice said Issue never presumed to suggest that single or widowed women should not to try to have children. But she suggested Mrs Reed "might want to seek counselling to help her think through the consequences of her decision".

Dr Bryan Lieberman, director of the North West Region IVF Unit and a member of the HFEA, said he opposed the extraction of sperm from a husband who was clinically dead. "I am not aware of that happening in Britain," he said.