Spanish TV actress Ana Obregón has revealed that the baby she had by surrogacy was actually fathered by her dead son.
Obregón, 68, revealed that she had paid for surrogacy in the US in order to fulfill her late son Aless Lequio's final wish to start a family.
In Spain, it is illegal to have a woman give birth on your behalf but adopting a child that has been born via surrogacy abroad is considered lawful.
Prior to Lequio's death from cancer at the age of 27 in 2020, his sperm was frozen and stored in New York, and the surrogate is believed to have been a woman of Cuban origin living in Florida.
Speaking of the unusual arrangement, Obregón told ¡Hola! magazine: "This girl isn't my daughter, she's my granddaughter."
She said that she and her son had spoken about his final wish to have a baby a week before his death, adding: "This was Aless's final wish, to bring a child of his own into the world."
Obregón's decision to go ahead with surrogacy in the US despite the practice being illegal in Spain caused controversy and attracted attention from ministers in the left-wing government.
She believes the national debate her decision created was "absurd" as surrogacy is legal in most countries in the world besides Spain.
While surrogacy is legal in many countries, there are different rules about whether a woman can be paid to bear a child for another, with some only allowing her expenses to be covered rather than large payments to compensate the surrogate.
Equality Minister Irene Montero condemned the practice as "a form of violence against women" and others have questioned whether there is an ethical issue with the child being adopted by a grandparent.
Under Article 175 of Spain's civil code, per the BBC, a grandparent is not entitled to adopt a "descendant", however, the loophole in Obregón's case is that she is legally the child's mother, despite being her grandmother biologically.
Using the semen of a dead man is a common practice for assisted reproduction in Spain but is only allowed within 12 months of the man's death and the mother would have to be his widow.
Social philosophy commentator Gonzalo Velasco also discussed the ethical implications of Obregón's decision, telling Cadena SER radio station: "Ana Obregón has taken it upon herself to interpret her dead son's wishes and that is going too far.
"No child is ever the property of his parents and neither is a dead child. No mother or father has the power to interpret the wishes of their child."
Obregón's former partner, Alessandro Lequio, who is her son's father, also declined to comment on the baby's birth.
The baby, who has been named Ana Sandra, is set to be registered at the Spanish consulate in Miami, where Obregón currently is before the pair fly to Madrid together.
Obregón has also refused to rule out giving the baby girl a brother or sister in the future.