(updates previous)
A ban on the use of donor sperm and
eggs, which is part of Italy's controversial law limiting
assisted-fertility treatments, has been struck down as invalid
by the Constitutional Court, ANSA sources said Wednesday.
The ruling also found the punishment for breaching
so-called law 40 - a 300,000-600,000-euro fine - was
unconstitutional.
"It was an outdated ban that penalized and
discriminated...against the right to procreate, as is sanctioned
in national legislation and international declarations," said a
statement from Filomena Gallo and Gianni Baldini, the lawyers
representing the couple who brought the case before the court.
The law has already been rejected by the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 2012, which said that Italy had
infringed upon two provisions of its convention for the
protection of human rights.
The issues surrounding reproductive rights and laws is a
hot political potato in overwhelmingly Catholic Italy.
Opinion polls have said that most Italians found the law
too harsh and believed it forced too many people, at least the
ones who can afford it, to resort to foreign clinics.
"The elimination of the ban on donor sperm and eggs finally
allows Italy to move on from the shameful phenomena of
procreative tourism," said attorneys Gallo and Baldini.
The law was originally passed by a cross-party alliance of
Catholics in a battle which also pitted male MPs against female
MPs.
"The framers of the Constitution must be rolling in their
graves, after an interpretation that permits assisted fertility
via laboratory cocktails made of the genes from multiple
parents," said Maurizio Sacconi, Senate whip for the New Center
Right (NCD).
Other parts of Italy's controversial reproductive laws,
which remain under court review, forbid the screening of embryos
for abnormalities or genetic disorders, even for couples with a
history of genetic disease.
As well, single parents, same-sex couples and women beyond
child-bearing age are banned from using assisted-fertility
techniques, which are limited to sterile heterosexual couples
who are married or live together.
The law also bans embryos from being frozen or used for
scientific research.
It allows a maximum of three eggs to be fertilised at one
time and requires them all to be transferred to the womb
simultaneously.
The law goes much further with regard to human cloning and
manipulation of human embryos, issuing stiff fines and jail
terms of up to 20 years.
After the Constitutional Court ruled to lift the ban on
donor sperm and eggs, Italian Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin
said that parliament must now intervene to write a new policy.
"The law is gutted. It requires parliament to intervene,"
she said.
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