Italian prosecutors on Wednesday
said that the embryo mix-up that occurred in December 2013 at
Sandro Pertini Hospital in Rome does not constitute a felony and
requested the criminal case to be dropped.
A complaint was filed in April 2014 to prosecutors by one
of the couples involved in the case of assisted-fertility
treatments that led to a woman carrying twins not genetically
hers.
According to Law 40 of 2004, the law under which the
charges were filed, only administrative and civil fines are
possible, should the person responsible for the mix-up
eventually be identified.
The embryos were mixed up because the surnames of the two
couples involved were very similar, police said.
Following the discovery of the mix-up in April, the
assisted-fertility clinic at Pertini hospital implemented new
procedures to prevent such errors from repeating, including
assigning each patient an ID code and treating no more than
three aspiring mothers on the same day.
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