[Post mortem semen acquisition: not without 'informed consent']

Recently, two requests for post-mortem semen acquisition were evaluated and rejected. The first request was from the wife of a man who died after the wedding night. In the second case, the wife requested that electroejaculation be done on a man who was brain dead because of a gunshot wound in the head. In both cases, the fact that there was no written consent from the men involved before they died was the deciding reason not to grant the requests. Written consent is legally and ethically seen as the final episode of a period in which persons have considered the consequences of the acquisition, storage and use of semen after the death of the husband.