Legislative References on Assisted Reproduction
The law defines assisted reproduction as the set of medical-surgical artifices aimed at "promoting the solution of reproductive problems arising from human sterility or infertility [...] when there are no other effective methods to remove the causes of sterility or infertility".
This concept remains deliberately ambiguous, in order to understand innovative methods that may arise in the future, but this very ambiguity has important socioeconomic consequences, such as allowing access to related coverage by the National Health Service.
Article 2 states that the State promotes "research on the pathological, psychological, environmental, and social causes of sterility and infertility phenomena and encourages the necessary interventions to remove them as well as to reduce their incidence," but with respect to "all parties involved, including the conceived."
Access to assisted reproductive techniques is allowed for "adult couples of different sexes, married or cohabiting, of potentially fertile age, both living."
The use of heterologous fertilization techniques is permitted.
Eugenics is prohibited.
Article 14 prohibits the cryopreservation of embryos, to reduce the surplus of embryos created during assisted reproduction.
However, cryopreservation is allowed for temporary and documented force majeure reasons that were not foreseeable at the time of fertilization.
On April 1, 2009, paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 14 were declared partially illegitimate by ruling No. 151 of the Constitutional Court.
In particular, paragraph 2 was declared illegitimate where it sets a limit on the production of embryos "in any case not exceeding three" and where it imposes the obligation of "a single and simultaneous implantation."
Paragraph 3, which allows for the cryopreservation of embryos "when the transfer of the embryos into the uterus is not possible due to serious and documented force majeure related to the woman's health that was not foreseeable at the time of fertilization," was declared illegitimate in that it does not stipulate that the transfer of such embryos, "to be carried out as soon as possible," must also be done without prejudice to the woman's health.
Prior to the Constitutional Court Ruling No. 151/09, on April 1, 2009, the Lazio TAR, with ruling 398/08 (in which questions of legitimacy later accepted by the Constitutional Court were raised), also declared the ban on pre-implantation diagnosis provided by the Ministerial Guidelines (adopted with D.M 21.7.2004) illegitimate unless such a technique had an experimental character or specific eugenic purpose (in the sense that the technique was aimed at racial selection).
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