Mother in legal fight to save dead transgender daughter's sperm

 

Image copyrightCENTRAL SCOTLAND NEWS AGENCY

Image captionEllie Anderson had her sperm frozen at the age of 14 in the hope of one day becoming a parent

A Scottish woman is preparing to take legal action to prevent fertility doctors from destroying her transgender daughter's frozen sperm.

Louise Anderson wants to use the frozen sperm of her daughter, Ellie, to produce a grandchild.

Ellie, who lived in Stirling, died suddenly in July aged 16.

She was transgender and identified as a girl. Ellie had her sperm frozen when she was 14 so she could eventually have her own biological children.

Her mother wants to honour her wishes posthumously, using Ellie's sperm, an egg donor and a surrogate.

Solicitors acting on Louise's behalf plan to take the case to the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

Image captionLouise Anderson wants to use an egg donor and a surrogate to have her daughter's child

Ms Anderson said Ellie had known she was transgender from an early age.

"As a teenager she delayed hormone blockers to save her sperm to enable her to have her own biological children. She had made me promise that if anything were to happen to her, her children would be brought into the world."

She told BBC Scotland: "I am going to do everything I can to honour her wishes - not just for her but for anyone else who is caught in this position. It kind of sparked a little fire in my belly and I want to make her wishes come true."

Ellie's sperm was frozen at Glasgow Royal Infirmary Fertility Clinic but it has told Ms Anderson the sample cannot be retained.

Under present UK human fertilisation rules, if Ellie was in a relationship when she died, her partner would have had the right to ask for her sperm to be retained. Her mother does not have that right.

Court order

Lawyers may seek a court order preventing it from being destroyed.

Solicitor Virgil Crawford, who is acting for Louise, said it was an "unusual, interesting, important and complex legal issue".

"What we're trying to achieve would be to get an order from the court that Ellie's mum would be entitled to make use of her sperm for the purpose that Ellie intended - that being to create a genetic child of hers and a grandchild for Ms Anderson."

Failing that, they would hope the court would say the existing law needs to be changed.

Image copyrightLOUISE ANDERSON

Image captionEllie Anderson identified as a girl from an early age

David Obree, a fellow in medical ethics at the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC that he believes Ellie's transgender status is "irrelevant".

He said: "The key question is what did she intend the sperm to be used for? The question the court will need to look at is did she specifically consent or request that her sperm be used by a third party?"

Ellie, who had started taking female hormones, died in Forth Valley Hospital after falling ill in Lower Bridge Street, Stirling.

She was a pupil at St Modan's RC High School and had secured a place at City of Glasgow College to study hairdressing.

Her death is described as "unascertained".

A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which runs the fertility clinic, said: "We are sorry to hear about this young woman's death and our sympathies are with her family.

"Glasgow Royal Infirmary Assisted Conception Services is licensed and regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The storage of gametes (sperm) is managed in line with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (1990) and complies with the consents provided by the donors."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-53889359

Ricky Gervais slams political correctness and cancel culture

Gervais has spoken out about the importance of freedom of speech, rejecting the viability of criminalizing certain kinds of speech that someone may find offensive.

Comedian Ricky Gervais has long been one of the more outspoken people on the degeneracy of political correctness and cancel culture, describing the latter as a "weird sort of fascism," according to the Daily Wire.

With the obvious exceptions of libel and slander laws, Gervais has spoken out about the importance of freedom of speech, rejecting the viability of criminalizing certain kinds of speech that someone may find offensive.

Gervais shared with talkRadio that "The Office"—a BBC original show that he made—would never be allowed in the cultural environment today because of "these outrage mobs who take everything out of context."

He continued: "This was a show about everything — it was about difference, it was about sex, race, all the things that people fear to even be discussed or talked about now, in case they say the wrong thing and they are canceled."

"There's this new weird sort of fascism of people thinking they know what you can say and what you can’t and it’s a really weird thing… that there’s this new trendy myth that people who want free speech want to say awful things all the time. It's just isn't true, it protects everyone," said Gervais.

"If you're mildly left-wing on Twitter, you're suddenly Trotsky, right? If your mildly conservative, if you're Hitler and if your centrist and you look at both arguments, you're a coward."

"Just because you're offended it doesn't mean you're right," he added.

Gervais has not backed down from his views on freedom of speech despite the backlash and criticism he has received. His 2020 Golden Globes monologue was a perfect example of this, where Gervais unapologetically went after Hollywood stars, drawing worried looks from a number of attendees, including Tom Hanks.

Gervais said that his monologue was "quite zeitgeisty. I suppose because people were tired of being lectured by multimillionaires telling them to recycle when they're flying around in private jets. So I think people were tired of the hypocrisy."

"The BBC have got more and more careful, people want to keep their jobs, so would worry about some of the subjects and jokes, even though they were clearly ironic and we were laughing at this buffoon being uncomfortable around difference."

"I think if this was put out now, some people have lost their sense of irony and context."

The same goes for the American version of "The Office," where Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell, says outrageous things due to his ignorance on a number of issues, which is what makes it comical.

Gervais noted that the state of comedy today has been simplified "two tribes of people screaming."

"I genuinely think I don't do anything that deserves to be canceled. Some people now don't care about the argument or the issue, they just want to own someone, they want to win the argument."

https://thepostmillennial.com/watch-ricky-gervais-slams-political-correctness-and-cancel-culture

UK to Remove Huawei From 5G Network by 2027

A smartphone with the Huawei and 5G network logo is seen on a PC motherboard in this illustration picture taken on Jan. 29, 2020. 

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has banned Huawei from further input into the UK’s telecoms infrastructure by the end of 2020, and set a deadline of 2027 for the stripping out of existing kit from the country’s 5G network, it was announced in Parliament today.

The reversal has come amid fears of the potential for spying and sabotage on the part of the Chinese telecoms giant, who are alleged to be linked to the Chinese state.

The government’s proposal to remove Huawei from the UK network was delivered by Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden in a statement to the House of Commons this afternoon.

The statement outlined how, after the imposition of U.S. sanctions on Huawei in May preventing the company from using U.S. technology and software in manufacturing its equipment, the UK government was following new security advice to discontinue the use of Huawei equipment in the 5G network.

Dowden said that because of the sanctions, the government can “no longer be confident it will be able to guarantee the security of future Huawei 5G equipment.”

Telecommunications companies will be banned from buying Huawei equipment at the end of the year, and will need to remove Huawei equipment from existing systems by the end 2027.

Full-fibre broadband operators were also advised to move away from purchasing Huawei equipment.

The legislation will be set out in a Telecoms Security Bill that will be presented to the House of Commons in the autumn.

“By the time of the next election we will have implemented in law an irreversible path for the complete removal of Huawei equipment from our 5G networks,” Dowden said in a statement to Parliament.

In a statement, Ed Brewster, a spokesperson for Huawei UK, said: “This disappointing decision is bad news for anyone in the UK with a mobile phone. It threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane, push up bills and deepen the digital divide.”

He urged the UK to reconsider, saying the issue had become politicised, and that the “new U.S. restrictions would not have affected the resilience or security of the products we supply to the UK.”

Johnson, who chaired a meeting of the National Security Council this morning, had faced calls from a 60-strong lobby of his own backbench MPs to remove the controversial company from the 5G infrastructure.

He has also been under increasing pressure from the United States to cut ties with Huawei.

Reports that Huawei’s UK chairman, John Browne, the former head of BP, is stepping down months before the end of his contract, preceded the government announcement only by hours.

The important announcement comes whilst UK’s top security official Sir Mark Sedwill is set to meet U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien in Paris for talks on Huawei.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/huawei-to-be-removed-from-uk-5g-network-by-2027_3423859.html