Re X (Catastrophic injury: Collection and storage of sperm) [2022] EWCOP 48

Sperm The parents of X, who had collapsed suddenly and had virtually no prospect of regaining consciousness, sought a declaration that it would be lawful for a doctor to retrieve X's gametes and lawful for those gametes to be stored both before and after his death and an order that X's father may sign the relevant statutory consents. The idea was that X's girlfriend (from whom there was no evidence) would give birth but X's parents would raise the child. The court noted: "If the Court of Protection were routinely to authorise the collection and storage of gametes in cases where there is no or little evidence that the incapacitous, dying person would have consented, then it would undermine the regulatory provisions within the 1990 Act which require actual consent."