Nguyen Thi Hue was 42 years old and facing a death sentence when she decided that her body would be the last possible appeal.
In 2012, she was arrested for trafficking illicit substances in Vietnam, and in 2014 a court sentenced her to death. But Vietnamese law has a precise loophole: it prohibits the execution of pregnant women or women with children under 36 months old. Hue knew this, and in August 2015 she paid 50 million dong—about 2,200 dollars—to Nguyen Tuan Hung, another 27-year-old inmate, in exchange for his semen.
The material was moved inside Quang Ninh prison in syringes hidden inside plastic bags, in two separate deliveries, until she managed to inseminate herself. When the pregnancy was confirmed, the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and four prison officials were ultimately dismissed for negligence.
The baby was eventually born in May 2016, and Hue avoided execution by retaining her life sentence. Thus, the son she conceived inside a prison also ended up being the reason she managed to stay alive.