Ângela Ferreira, the woman who led the movement to legalize postmortem insemination in Portugal, has given birth to Guilherme after using cryopreserved semen by her husband, who died of cancer in 2019.
“Today our world was more enlightened. Guilherme was born at 11:09 with 3,915 kg and 50.5 cm. He is a healthy boy. Thank you, my love, Hugo Neves Ferreira, for having chosen me for this dream!”, Ângela wrote last night in a post on her Instagram account dedicated to her husband and along with a photograph of the newborn. “Thank you all for the love and concern for him! And now? Now I am going to isolate myself in this bubble of love and enjoy it as much as I can. I could and maybe I should say more, but right now I want to enjoy and enjoy this endless love”, she added.
The fight to legalize postmortem insemination
Ângela Ferreira led a battle in Portugal to legalize post-mortem insemination after her husband Hugo died of cancer in 2019 and left in writing her wish that her wife has a child with the semen she cryopreserved. In 2020, they reported the story in a documentary series on the Portuguese channel TVI and managed to mobilize more than 100,000 people to sign a petition for the proposal to be discussed in Parliament.
After several projects from different parties, and with a presidential veto in between, post-mortem insemination finally came into force in Portugal in November 2021. In February 2023, Ângela Ferreira made public her pregnancy through social media.
The norm allows a woman to be inseminated with the genetic material of her deceased partner “in cases of expressly consented parental projects” and in a period of between 6 months and 3 years after her death. If the process culminates in the birth of a baby, this is considered the child of the deceased at the legal level.
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