Black twins born to a white couple after an IVF (in vitro fertilisation) blunder should remain with them, a British judge said Monday, naming for the first time the hospital responsible for the fiasco.
”No-one is suggesting that the twins should be uprooted from Mr and Mrs A’s care at any stage,” Judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said, describing the case as ”unprecedented in this country.”
The judge said the mix-up occurred at a Leeds unit in northern England licensed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which formed part of the Leeds National Health Service Trust, or hospital.
Two couples attended the unit on the same day for infertility treatment involving the injection of fresh male sperm into female eggs and implantation shortly afterwards.
Despite protocols designed specifically to prevent such an event, a mix-up occurred and Mr B’s sperm was used to fertilise Mrs A’s eggs. An internal hospital inquiry suggested that the mistake probably occurred either when the samples of sperm were placed in a
centrifuge or when they were removed from a storage box immediately before being injected.
”There is no evidence of any other patients receiving the wrong embryos at this clinic,” Butler-Sloss said.
A government-commissioned external review was also under way, said the judge.
”Following the fertility treatment, Mrs B did not give birth to a child,” she said.
”It is not known for certain whether there was also an error in the treatment provided for her.”
The twins, Y and Z, ”have been loved by Mr and Mrs A and their wider family from the moment of their birth, and nothing that has happened since then will change that.”
The judge said DNA tests showing Mr A was not the father of the twins came as a great shock to him and his wife ”and I can only commend them for how they have responded”.
Mr and Mrs B were at first unaware of what had happened, but Butler-Sloss said she had ruled in July that they should be told. They too were shocked and had reacted with dignity, the judge said. Mr B agreed to DNA testing which proved he was the biological father.
A decision on the legal parentage of the twins is expected early next year. – Sapa-AFP