Clause 1 - Certain deceased men to be registered as fathers
Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Deceased Fathers) Bill
11:45 am
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
The Minister said that she did not think that my example—where birth registration became such a big issue that a woman would go to great lengths to obtain it—would arise. However, the unfortunate case of Mrs. Blood is a clear example of someone who feels so strongly that she has campaigned magnificently on the issue for years—and I do not suggest that her failure to obtain lawful consent was malicious or an effort at trickery. The hon. Lady suggests that that case is a freak and that there will be no more like it. However, the literature, including the McLean report, records tens of cases in north America where questions of that nature have been asked about unconscious men and the extraction of their sperm. The situation is more prevalent than she suggests.