Even those who are strongly focused on posthumous reproduction may eventually move forward without it. A Texan mother, Missy Evans, gained media attention in 2009 for her attempts to use her deceased son Nikolas’s sperm to create a child. “The reason that I felt so strongly about it,” Missy says, “is because of what my son’s desires were for his life.” She won permission to harvest Nikolas’s sperm, and sought and found willing surrogates in several countries.

But the process has been a struggle. Half the sperm vials have been used up and none of the embryos created have been viable. “It is so expensive and it is so time-consuming and it is so heartbreaking,” Missy says. She is not sure if she will continue.

In the meantime Missy has become a grandmother through her surviving son. “I spent so much time wreaking havoc with my family that these last few years we have spent just enjoying the granddaughter that I actually have,” she says. “My son was super afraid that I had concentrated my efforts on having my other son’s kid or kids that I wasn’t going to bask in the joy of the child that was here and so I listened to him.” Even so, she says that she has no regrets about the decision she made.

So what can you do to make sure that what does or doesn’t happen after your death is what you want? One practical thing is to include your future reproductive wishes in your living will. Especially in countries like the U.S., where the legal situation can be unclear, we really need to be having these conversations and putting our wishes down on paper.

Sadly this is not yet reality. But perhaps not surprisingly, Israel is leading the way. One enterprising lawyer there advertises a special service just for such needs in the form of The Biological Will. According to the company, the will, which allows children to be conceived after the death of both parents if necessary, means that “the right to genetic continuity can now be independent even of life itself.” In an unequivocal statement, its founder writes: “Denying the right to procreation is a sentence, perhaps closest in nature, to involuntary sterilization or the death penalty.”

As for Ana Clark, it has now been almost two years since Bastuba collected sperm from her dead husband. Does she still want to have Mike’s child? “Absolutely,” she says. “There is no possibility of me not having this child.” She wants to wait a couple of years, to give herself time to get her Master’s degree so she can provide for her child in the way she wants. “Whoever I do choose to be with is definitely going to have to accept that this is something I am going to do, and there is nothing they can do about it.”

Her family, she says, is completely supportive. It is strange to think that there would likely be fewer people questioning the ethics of Ana’s decision if she were to buy sperm from an anonymous donor. But she already met the man she wants to father her children. “I don’t want children with anyone else,” she says, “I only want them with my husband.”

This article appears courtesy of Mosaic.

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