Taiwanese authorities have extracted sperm from the body of a dead army officer some 57 hours after he died to enable his fiance to bear his child through artificial insemination. Late Saturday a doctor from a military hospital extracted sperm from the body of Sun Chi-hsiang, an army captain who was killed last Wednesday in a military accident.Defence Minister Lee Jye subsequently met with Sun’s fiancee Lee Hsing-yu to express his condolences over the accident, during which Lee Hsing-yu said she wanted to bear the child of her dead lover.Her request was turned down by the minister, who cited Taiwanese laws that forbid the harvesting of sperm from the deceased.Saturday’s retrieval of sperm from Sun was only made possible after Premier Frank Hsieh consented to the operation following a series of emotional public pleas by Lee Hsing-yu.
