THIS is the Chester woman who won a landmark victory in the House of Lords after giving birth to a child using her late partner's sperm.
Joanne Tarbuck last week sat in the Houses of Parliament with Diane Blood, the widow who fought to have children using her dead husband's sperm, and witnessed an historic change in the law after a long battle for justice.
Mrs Tarbuck, 34, of Higher Kinnerton, near Chester, was devastated when her husband Martin died of cancer in 1994.
However, before his death her husband had given consent for posthumous use of his sperm and six-year-old Jonathan was conceived at a British clinic.
Up until last week, the birth certificate for Jonathan Tarbuck remained blank in the section identifying his father.
But all that changed when The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Deceased Fathers) Bill was given its third and final reading at the House on Thursday of last week before being granted Royal Assent.
The Bill is now law and allows any fathers who have posthumously donated their sperm to be legally recognised as the father if a future child is born.
Mrs Tarbuck was unable to comment on the ruling this week but her father Michael Williams said the name of Jonathan Tarbuck's father would be placed on the birth certificate within a matter of weeks.
The campaign for a change in the law was led by 36-year-old Mrs Blood, from Nottinghamshire, whose husband Stephen died from bacterial meningitis after falling into a coma in 1995.
Mrs Blood successfully campaigned to have sperm taken from her husband while he was in a coma.
She started her battle after the law prevented her from naming her late husband as the father of her two sons, Liam and Joel, on their birth certificates.
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