Abandoned by the State, betrayed by the Church: Italian experiences of cross-border reproductive care

Abstract

This paper investigates the case of Italians travelling abroad for fertility treatments as a reaction to the restrictive Italian law regulating medically assisted procreation. The acknowledgement of legal limitations provokes special feelings of abandonment while the decision to leave the country represents intentions that oppose institutional positions and results in an embodied dissent against them. The choice of destination considers legal, medical, economic, logistic and cultural matters and pertains to the re-elaboration of one's own way of understanding reproduction and interpreting restrictive rules on the matter. This paper first presents the Italian law concerning assisted reproduction and the political, moral and cultural context in which this law has been approved, contested and partially modified. Then, the experiences of Italians undertaking cross-border reproductive care (CBRC) are analysed, focusing on feelings that people develop in the face of restrictive legislation and on the meaning that CBRC acquires in their reproductive stories. Finally, the criteria that lead people to take specific decisions concerning destinations are explored in order to show which kind of expectations and needs they have with regard to CBRC and which elements they deem important to consider their experience fulfilling and successful.

Multivariate analysis to predict letrozole efficacy in improving sperm count of non-obstructive azoospermic and cryptozoospermic patients: a pilot study

“…28 This might be particularly interesting for Italians since their law limits the efficiency of assisted reproduction treatment in couples with a severe male factor. 29,30 It is unlikely that letrozole increased congenital malformations, as no malformed babies were fathered during the course of letrozole treatment. 6 Additional studies have also shown that letrozole does not increase the risk of congenital malformations with ovulation induction.…”

Reduction in sperm aneuploidy levels in severe oligoasthenoteratospermic patients after medical therapy: a preliminary report

“…29 Therefore, approximately one-half of couples needing assisted reproduction travel abroad for fertility treatments. 30 This made the recruitment of couples for the present paper particularly difficult. Although sperm morphology is an independent characteristic with respect to concentration and motility, which, by contrast, are directly linked to each other, 13 we were compelled to recruit couples arbitrarily only on the basis of sperm concentration to avoid an excessively long study period.…”

Assisted Reproductive Technology in Europe: Usage and Regulation in the Context of Cross-Border Reproductive Care

“…There is also considerable variation across countries in the amounts donors are paid. Patients from countries such as Italy hope to receive better quality treatments abroad (Zanini, 2011;Shenfield et al, 2010), while other patients go abroad because the previous treatments they received in their country of residence failed (Shenfield et al, 2010;Culley et al, 2011). In their comparative study of patients seeking treatment abroad, Shenfield et al (2010) found evidence that supports the assumption that differences in regulations are important drivers of cross-border fertility care.…”