A British clinic was at the centre of controversy today for considering helping an infertile woman to have her brother's child through artificial insemination.
Pressure groups accused regulatory body the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) of authorising an "incestuous" procedure.
The woman, who is 47 and believed to be a doctor, is undergoing assessment at the Bridge Centre in London and discussions with the HFEA should be concluded in the next few weeks, the clinic's director said.
The Sunday Times reported that the women is using a donor egg but it is not known whether she has a partner who could have fathered the child.
The pressure group Comment on Reproductive Ethics said the HFEA was "rapidly turning into a rubber-stamp organisation incapable of saying 'no' ". A spokeswoman said: "In granting a licence for fraternal fertilisation, a procedure considered incestuous throughout human history, once again the HFEA shows itself to be an organisation without willpower or clout.
"It makes complete nonsense of UK regulations which are supposed to place the welfare of the child in a paramount position." The case follows the controversy in June surrounding Frenchwoman Jeanine Salomone (62) who gave birth to a child conceived using a donor egg fertilised with the sperm of her brother Robert (52).
Ms Salomone, who gave birth to Benoit David in France on May 14th, was artificially inseminated at a Los Angeles clinic.
The Comment on Reproductive Ethics spokeswoman said the British case was similar to that of the Salomones - "the only difference being that that fertilisation was not performed with Government approval".
Prof Jack Scarisbrick, national chairman of the pro-life charity LIFE, said: "It's horrible - and yet another example of how the natural order of procreation is being undermined. We go further and further down the slippery slope."
A spokeswoman for the HFEA insisted, though, that the organisation had not authorised the procedure to take place.
She added: "The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990 specifically states that no category of woman can be excluded from treatment, but the welfare of the child has to be taken into account," she said.
The Sunday Times quoted Bridge Centre director Mr Gedis Grudzinskas as saying: "I do not consider this case to be any different from a woman receiving an egg donated by her sister. It is not incest."