NEW YORK, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- A New Jersey couple have been rebuffed in efforts to use their dead son's frozen semen for a grandchild he was never able to give them.
A New York judge ruled Antonio and Mary Speranza have no right to the semen, which must be destroyed. The mother called the decision "very cruel" and vowed to keep fighting, the New York Post reported Friday.
Mark Speranza was 23 when he died of cancer in 1998. Six months before his death he deposited semen samples at Repro Lab, a New York sperm bank, the newspaper said and his mother made $400 annual payments to the lab while she searched for a potential surrogate mother.
But, the lab said Mark Speranza had signified he wanted the samples destroyed in case of his death. When the case went to court, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jane Solomon ruled that the sperm must be destroyed because the state health code requires the sperm depositor be given blood tests for HIV and other diseases, the Post said.
