THE English widow, Ms Diane Blood, is to be allowed to try for a baby using her dead husband's frozen sperm, it was decided yesterday.
Ms Blood (30) was yesterday afternoon celebrating the decision by the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which ended a two-year legal battle.
She will still be banned from using her husband Stephen's sperm in the UK, but plans to travel to Belgium where a clinic has agreed to artificially inseminate her.
Her solicitor, Mr Richard Stein, said: "We have received a decision and we need an opportunity to consider the longest of the conditions imposed, but in principle it would appear as though the decision is that Diane Blood can take the sperm to Belgium for treatment."
Ms Blood immediately called her husband's parents to tell them the news.
The statement from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority read: "At its meeting today, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority decided to allow Ms Diane Blood to export her late husband's sperm to Belgium for her treatment.
"This follows the judgment by the Court of Appeal on February 6th, which confirms that treatment in the UK without the donor's written consent would be illegal, and emphasised that this is an exceptional case which the court assured cannot recur.
"The authority has always insisted on the principle of informed, written consent for storage or use of genetic material."
Yesterday's decision overturned an earlier HFEA ruling that Ms Blood, of Worksop, Nottingham, could not use her husband's sperm, because he did not give written consent before his sudden death from meningitis in March 1995
It also follows an Appeal Court ruling on February 6th - which would have been husband's 32nd birthday - that while she should not be allowed to use the sperm in the UK, the HFEA should reconsider its decision not to allow her to export it.
Ms Blood, a public relations executive, insists she and Stephen had always planned to have children together and that the only reason she did not have written consent was the suddenness of his death.