Italy's fertility clinics lack a
sufficient supply of donor eggs to match current demand, which
has led many of them to search for donors throughout Europe, a
national expert said Wednesday.
"In Italy at the moment there aren't voluntary egg donors,"
said Elisabetta Coccia, president of Cecos Italy, an association
of 21 national public and private fertility clinics.
"So the choice to go abroad is the only possible way at
the moment to guarantee fertility treatments in our country,"
Coccia said.
In April, Italy's Constitutional Court ruled that a
couple's right to have a child was inviolable even in the case
of sterility, overruling a 2004 ban on donor sperm and eggs that
did not come from a spouse.
Since the ruling went into effect last June, demand for
gametes has soared.
Coccia confirmed that one pregnancy has already resulted
from a foreign egg, and that most of the 21 Cecos clinics will
be finalizing contracts in coming days with various European
gamete banks.
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