A Canadian mother has medical ethicists sitting up and taking notice because she has frozen some of her eggs in case her 7-year-old daughter—who is sterile due to a genetic condition—wants to have children of her own some day.
About 60 cases of cancer patients freezing eggs have been reported throughout North America, but Melanie Boivin's decision to save her eggs for her daughter is unprecedented in Canada.
Her doctors say it's no different than donating a kidney to a loved one and that it shows "a mother's love." The case has been reviewed and endorsed by the ethical
committee of the McGill University Health Centre where her eggs are being frozen. Boivin decided to donate her eggs after finding
out that her daughter is sterile because she has Turner's
syndrome, a condition where one of the two X chromosomes normally found
in females is missing or incomplete.
If Boivin's daughter decides to use the frozen eggs she will be giving birth to her own half-sister, making Boivin a mother (again) and grandmother.
