A government-appointed panel of
scientific experts said Monday that nothing now stands in the
way of activating anonymous sperm banks in Italy.
From now on, public health facilities must "guarantee all
citizens the possibility of assisted reproduction via donor
gametes (eggs or sperm), without economic or territorial
discrimination," the panel said.
Italian couples unable to conceive on their own were
forbidden to use donor sperm or eggs until the supreme
Constitutional Court overturned the ban in June.
The justices struck it down because it unfairly penalized
low-income couples who could not travel abroad to seek
treatment.
Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin convened the panel to
make recommendations as to how to implement the court's
decision.
The public health-care system must allocate money to open
"public sperm and egg banks," the experts said.
Donors should remain anonymous, and their DNA and other
data should be cross-referenced to avoid the risk of inbreeding,
the panel said.
For the same reason, the panel recommended limiting the
number of live births per donor to a maximum of 25, while also
allowing couples to conceive more than one child with the help
of gametes (sperm or eggs) from the same donor.
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