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Latest Surrogacy News
By Roberto Landucci
11 Dec 2003 14:34:30 GMT
AlertNet
ROME, Dec 11 (Reuters)
- Italy's Senate approved on Thursday a controversial
law on reproductive rights, banning the use of donor
sperm, eggs or surrogate mothers and restricting
assisted fertilisation to "stable" heterosexual couples.
The government welcomed
the legislation as finally bringing the realm of
reproduction under the rule of law, but critics
denounced it as "medieval" and said it could be the
first step towards making abortion illegal.
The law was passed by a
wide margin as some opposition senators in this
staunchly Roman Catholic country crossed party lines to
back the bill drawn up by Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi's centre-right coalition.
"This law says
'enough!' to the abuses and recognises that an embryo is
a person and as such must be protected from the point of
conception," said Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, a
senator from Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.
Many in Italy, which is
home to the maverick fertility doctor Severino Antinori
who helped a 62-year-old woman give birth with a donated
egg, felt legal restrictions were needed.
Under the bill, only
infertile couples can resort to assisted reproduction
and they cannot use the sperm or eggs of a donor, or
resort to surrogate motherhood. The couple must be
married or provide evidence of a "stable" relationship.
The bill's backers say
it guarantees a child's right to know who his or her
parents are and protects the embryo.
Embryos resulting from
artificial insemination cannot be frozen or used for
research purposes. Doctors can only create up to three
embryos during each attempt at insemination and all of
them must be implanted in the potential mother's womb.
Some specialists say
three times as many embryos are needed.
"We will now be the
most backwards country in Europe," said Gavino Angius,
speaker for the Democrats of the Left in the Senate.
"The conditions for an attack on the (abortion) law have
been created."
Opposition lawmaker
Giovanna Melandri has called the bill "medieval" and
"hateful" and even backers of the legislation said it
could pave the way to making abortion illegal.
Giulio Andreotti, who
was prime minister seven times and is now a senator for
life, said: "This law recognises an embryo's legal
jurisdiction, I don't understand therefore why it can be
killed for up to four months."
The bill has been
approved by both houses of parliament although it will
now return to the lower house for a rubber stamp before
becoming law.
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