Now debate on PMSR after AIIMS rejected the demand of widow

New Delhi: Doctors at AIMS in India have rejected the first ever case of retrieving sperms from the body of a dead man kicking off a debate on immediate framing of legal guidelines for retrieving sperms posthumously.

The doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) had encountered a strange demand from a young widow who was willing to conceive baby from the sperm of her dead husband. The demand was out rightly rejected by the doctors as country do not have any laws which allows retrieval of sperms from a dead man's body.

“The parents of the dead man were also supporting the demand of their daughter-in-law,” Dr Sudhir Gupta, head of AIIIMS forensic science department was quoted in a report published by an English daily. Doctors found themselves so helpless as medically it was possible but there hands were tied due to absence of any guidelines or laws.

Doctors claim that posthumous retrieval of sperm can be done within five minutes by dissecting the testis and it can be retrieved within 24 hours of a dead man's body. But since there are no legal guidelines,it is not possible in India.

But this case, the first of its kind in the medical history of India, has forced the medical fraternity to take it up with the government.

“The government should make guidelines for the collection of sperm posthumously in a bid to provide maximum benefit to the family as well as society,” doctors argue.

Legal forensic experts Rajesh V Bardale and P G Dixit had in 2006 predicted about the rise in demand of sperm retrieval posthumously, according to an article published in Indian Journal of Medical Ethics.

The posthumously removal of sperm is allowed in Israel at the request of dead man's wife even without getting anyone’s consent. The legal guidelines in Israel allow that sperms of a dead man can be preserved for just a year and cannot be used in case the wife dies.