Up to now, Law 40 regulates access to techniques of assisted fertilization in Italy prohibited the use of fertile couples carrying genetic diseases. Today, however, this prohibition also falls. It was the Consult which accepted the appeal filed years ago by two Italian couples who hadn't had access to the MAP precisely due to this law.
From today, therefore, also the fertile couples but healthy carriers of transmissible genetic diseases or the ones that are incompatible with life can have access to assisted fertilization in our country and have recourse to pre-implantation diagnosis.
An important advance that further dismantles the legislative system from the infamous Law 40, which arrived to force 11 years ago. Filomena Gallo (secretary from the Luca Coscioni Association), Gianni Baldini and Angelo Calandrini, defenders of the couples who started the judicial proceedings in the Consulta, express an understandable enthusiasm
We express joy along with couples who for many years only have wanted to have a healthy baby and steer clear of miscarriages. Today is an important day for many families. This was the only real decision that the Court might take because the only one that comes down to respecting people’s fundamental rights
they declare in unison.
There law 40 it has been completely modified in these 11 years following the numerous appeals and decisions from the Courts. Filomena Gallo recalls that this is the 36th decision of the courts, including 3 of the Constitutional Court, which have practically dismantled the entire law.
The judges then declared unconstitutional the rule that forbade use of assisted fertilization to fertile couples with genetic disease and therefore now
They exist at the moment approx ten thousand genetic mutations accountable for genetic diseases and therefore transmissible from parents to children. diseases that may be diagnosed before embryo implantation and that could therefore be completely avoided by resorting to reimplantation diagnosis.
La Stampa states that on the basis of the European Eshre register, in the period 2009-2010 6,160 cycles of oocyte retrieval were completed for preimplantation diagnosis and 1,238 children born and that in the 2580 cycles performed for hereditary genetic or chromosomal diseases no case of diagnostic error was recorded.
Thanks to the judges. What we want is only a peaceful pregnancy, which does not end with an abortion or having a child with very low likelihood of survival. We are just trying to begin a family in a country that is always painted negatively because of its low birth rate. Concepts such as selection, eugenics, and suppression of embryos are distant from us. We are individuals to whom nature has imposed the transmissibility of the disease that for love we do not want to pass on to our children.
the couples who considered the consultation told the Courier.