Girl Smarts: This 60-year-old wants to carry her late daughter's baby: let's discuss

Lawyers for Mrs. M. warn that the frozen eggs will “simply be allowed to perish” if their client isn’t allowed to move forward with her daughter’s wishes.

A 60-year-old woman in the U.K. is one step closer to gaining the right to give birth to her deceased daughter’s child.

The woman, identified in court papers only as “Mrs. M.,” is locked in a court battle over the use of her late daughter’s frozen eggs.

Mrs. M.’s daughter died of bowel cancer in 2011 at the age of 28. Mrs. M. says it was her daughter’s dying wish to have her mom carry her baby and have her parents raise the child, the New York Times reports.

Mrs. M. just won her case in the second-highest court in Britain on Thursday, but the ruling will likely be challenged by The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the British agency that tried to stop Mrs. M. from using the eggs in the first place.

Here’s the sticking point: Mrs. M. wants to remove the eggs from London and take them to a clinic in New York, where they’ll be matched with sperm from an anonymous donor. The agency is refusing to release them on the grounds that the daughter hasn’t given her consent (because she can’t).

The latest court ruling finds that the fertility organization set the bar too high in determining consent, noting that there is “sufficient evidence” that the daughter actually did want her mother to have and raise her own grandchild.

“They are never going to let me leave this hospital, Mum; the only way I will get out of here will be in a body bag,” the daughter is quoted by the court as saying. “I want you to carry my babies. I didn’t go through the IVF to save my eggs for nothing. I want you and Dad to bring them up. They will be safe with you. I couldn’t have wanted for better parents. I couldn’t have done without you.”

The court also points out that there is no law in the U.K. that limits the age when a woman can be implanted with eggs that were previously frozen, and any potential ethical questions are pretty much none of the fertility authority’s beeswax.

Lawyers for Mrs. M. warn that the frozen eggs will “simply be allowed to perish” if their client isn’t allowed to move forward with her daughter’s wishes.

Lawyers for Mrs. M. warn that the frozen eggs will “simply be allowed to perish” if their client isn’t allowed to move forward with her daughter’s wishes. Read Full Story