KOLKAtA:
Calcutta HC
has allowed an older couple who lost their 19-year-old son to suicide last year to become parents again through assisted reproductive technology, even though the husband — aged 59 — has crossed the upper age limit of 55 specified in the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021.
The court said it was making an exception in this case because the man’s wife, at 46, did not cross the age limit, and because the law did not distinguish between married and unmarried women.
The couple, the court said, was free to have a baby through
IVF
using external sperm and ova.
After the couple lost their only child to suicide in Oct 2023, they approached a private clinic to become parents again. Doctors at the clinic diagnosed the woman “medically fit and eligible to give birth to a child by the process of IVF with ovum donation.”
The legal wrangle was with the husband who, at 59, had passed the age bar, prompting the couple to move
high court
.
In its order on April 26, Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya noted that the Act says pregnancy can be achieved by handling sperm or oocyte (a cell in an ovary) outside the human body. “There is no restriction to the effect that either of the two must come from the couple themselves,” he said.
The judge said while the Act lays out duties of assisted reproductive technology clinics using human gametes, nowhere has it been specified that gametes have to be provided by the couple. He noted that since the couple planned to use sperm from a “third-party donor”, the question of a legal age bar on the husband in seeking assisted reproductive services did not arise.
HC noted that since the couple planned to use sperm from a ‘third-party donor’, the question of a legal age bar on the husband in seeking assisted reproductive services did not arise
