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Australian Woman Wins Fight To Impregnate Herself With Dead Partner’s Sperm

Australian Woman Wins Fight To Impregnate Herself With Dead Partner’s Sperm


Ayla Cresswell, 25, found her boyfriend Joshua Davies dead in August 2016 and has fought the Australian government since then to use the sperm she harvested from his body. On Wednesday, June 20th, Cresswell was granted permission from the Brisbane Supreme Court to use the sperm she harvested to start a family – which is what Cresswell and Davies had been planning before he unexpectedly died.

Cresswell discovered her boyfriend’s body in their home in Toowoomba, 130 kilometers inland from Brisbane, Australia, almost two years ago. Within hours of discovering Davies’ body, Cresswell was granted permission to harvest his sperm and store it at a nearby IVF facility, where it has been on ice ever since. Cresswell has said it was the young couple’s dream to have three children, however after her boyfriend died the dream almost died too.

“Joshua told me that he was very excited at the prospect of being a father and we often talked about having children and the effect it would have on our lives,” Cresswell told the court, adding “It is my honest belief that this is what Joshua would have wanted.

Justice Sue Brown weighed Cresswell’s ability to raise children as a single parent, taking into her account her physical, emotional, and financial statuses. “I believe that I am sufficiently affluent to be able to raise a child by myself,” Cresswell told the court, and had the support from her late-boyfriend’s family and her own, who told the court that they would help raise the children.

Cresswell’s dream, along with her late boyfriend’s, will now become a reality after Justice Brown ruled in Cresswell’s favor. This decision has set a legal precedent for Australia, giving women throughout Australia the possibility of having a family using their late-partner’s sperm.