Italian Constitutional Court removes the prohibition on gamete donation in Italy

Abstract

In 2004, The Italian Constitutional Court prohibited treatments involving gamate donation, embryo donation, embryo cryopreservation (except under exceptional circumstances), and the transfer of more than three embryos. Basically three statements were made by the Court: the ban violates a couple's fundamental right to health, to self-determination and to have a child. Here, the consequences of such a decision and the legal challenges that ensued are discussed.

Patient pressure: is the tide of cross-border reproductive care beginning to turn?

“…Law 40 was to have immediate catastrophic effects on assisted reproduction techniques in Italy. Mean pregnancy rate per transfer declined and the rate of multiple pregnancies increased (Benagiano et al, 2014). Overnight, there was an exodus of Italian fertility patients looking for appropriate treatments overseas.…”

“…Indeed, in 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy's ban on embryo screening [by PGD] breached two articles of the European Convention of Human Rights, including the right to respect for family and private life. The ruling followed the challenge of an Italian couple whose first child had died from cystic fibrosis (Benagiano et al, 2014).…”

“…It is significant, as Benagiano et al (2014) note, that these challenges came not from doctors but from patients. Significant too is that all the legal rulings to withdraw the restrictions were made in the interests of patients and their rights -to have children, to 'self-determination', and to health.…”

“…In a recent paper in Reproductive Biomedicine Online, Benagiano et al (2014) considered the legal ruling in Italy, which in April 2014 withdrew the national ban on gamete donation. The restrictions had been imposed in 2004 when Italy's infamous Law 40 had been introduced to bring some form of regulation to a country, which until then had been described as the 'wild west' of reproductive medicine.…”

Having it all? Where are we with “social” egg freezing today?

“…During the period when Italian law required all embryos created in a fresh cycle to be transferred and embryo cryopreservation was not allowed (Benagiano et al, 2014), there was intense pressure to improve the pregnancy rates from the supernumerary oocytes that could neither be fertilised nor transferred. These frozen-thawed oocytes made a valuable contribution to the cumulative pregnancy rate in Italy and demonstrated that "stopping the biological clock" for older would-be mothers could give them the opportunity of healthy pregnancies at an advanced age.…”