Widow re-registers children conceived with dead husband’s sperm

A WIDOW who fought for the right to have children using her dead husband’s sperm yesterday re-registered her children’s births.

Earlier this year Diane Blood won her long legal battle to have her late partner legally recognised as their father. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Deceased Fathers) Act 2003 came into force yesterday. This gives mothers like Mrs Blood, whose children were conceived after their fathers' deaths, a six-month window in which to re-register their children's births if they now wish to name the deceased parent on the relevant birth certificate.

Until now the child's parental details had to be left blank, as if they were unknown. Yesterday Mrs Blood, 37, from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, re-registered her two sons - Liam Stephen Blood, four, and 16-month-old Joel Michael Blood at Sheffield Register Office. She said: "It's a great day. I'm really pleased we've achieved what we've been working towards. It obviously means a lot to us.

"For my late husband, it's now recognised that he is a father and that my children are brothers. I'm hoping that Liam will remember this day so when he is old enough to recognise its significance he will remember he was there when the book was signed at the Registry Office again.

"And my late husband's family can now be recognised as the relations that they are. We've been looking forward to and working towards this day. It means a great deal to us." Mrs Blood said she was particularly keen to make sure as many people as possible who are in a similar situation know about the six-month window of opportunity.

Mrs Blood fought since 1998 for the law to be changed to allow the registering of a deceased father on the birth certificates of posthumously conceived children.

In February 2003 she won a High Court ruling that section 28(6)(b) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was incompatible with parts of the Human Rights Act 1998.

This incompatibility was finally rectified by Stephen McCabe's Private Member's Bill which became law in September. Mrs Blood said the law is estimated to affect around 30 or so existing families.