This is a strange and sad story. A ten-year-old girl in England has Turner syndrome, a condition that generally causes infertility because an X chromosome is missing. When the girl was 7, her mother had some eggs harvested so that if her daughter wanted, she could have a child that would be related to her (it would actually be her half-sister or half-brother) and not have to wait for ages to receive a donor egg. The problem is that egg-freezing laws only allow the storage of an egg for 10 years, so before the girl turns 18, she has to decide whether or not she wants to conceive a baby made from her mother’s egg right then. She would have to get pregnant before she can vote, and she probably wouldn’t have a guy in her life who would want to be the father of her children! Members of Parliament and doctors are urging ministers to change the law because IVF legislation hasn’t been updated in 18 years. Her best option would be to have the eggs fertilized by donor sperm and then frozen, which would buy her at least another 10 years before she’d have to get implanted with an embryo. [The Times, U.K.]
