IVF mixup: white couple have black babies
- Royal Childrens Hospital, Victoria, Australia
- Correspondence to: Dr M Spriggs, Ethics Unit, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Royal Childrens Hospital, Flemington Road, Parkville, Victoria, 3052, Australia; spriggsm{at}murdoch.rch.unimelb.edu.au
- Accepted 2 December 2002
A n IVF mixup has resulted in a white couple giving birth to black twins. Prior to DNA testing, no one can be sure whether the white woman’s eggs were fertilised with the black man’s sperm, or the black couple’s embryo was mistakenly implanted in the white woman. It is believed that Mr and Mrs A, the white couple, want to keep the babies and there is conjecture about Mr and Mrs B, the black couple, wanting them too.1 Under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, a woman who has a child born through IVF, even if it is not genetically hers, is the “legal mother”. Paternity, however, is “open to legal interpretation”.1–3
News of the mixup has elicited a range of reactions. It is thought …
