CHR - Press Relations
Blog topic: The Italian Infertility Law, Law 40
When the Italian legislature in 2004 passed one of the world’s most restrictive laws, governing infertility practices, Law 40, our Italian colleagues were shocked. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, Italian fertility specialists were forced, from one day to the next, to radically modify their practice patterns.
Adverse consequences to outcomes, including lower pregnancy rates, have since been widely reported in the medical literature. The European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), Europe’s counterpart to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), in its May 2009 ESHRE e-NEWS, considered Law 40 to have “quenched the ability of physicians to correctly apply ART.”
Indeed, rarely if ever before, has a legislative intervention so blatantly and negatively affected outcomes of a given medical treatment. Like probably only few other examples worldwide, Law 40 has, therefore, in many ways become a world-wide symbol for the potentially adverse consequences from legislative interventions into medical care.
But now, for a change, comes some better news out of Italy: As ESHRE e-NEWS reported on May 5, 2009, based on an article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ 2009;338:b1447), Italy’s Constitutional Court declared parts of Law 40 unconstitutional. In doing so, the Court reaffirmed that the health of a female prevails over other considerations.
How this ruling will, however, affect future IVF practices in Italy remains to be seen. Opinions differ: For example, Law 40 mandates that a maximum of 3 eggs be fertilized at one time in an IVF cycle and that all fertilized eggs (i.e., all embryos) be transferred back into the woman’s uterus. Past interpretation of Law 40, thus, precluded cryopreservation of embryos.
BMJ quotes Italy’s undersecretary of health, Eugenia Roccella as foreseeing no major changes arising from the Court’s ruling. In contrast Dr. Anna Pia Ferraretti, an eminent fertility specialist from one of Italy’s best known IVF centers in Bologna, is quoted in ESHRE e-NEWS as being somewhat more optimistic and expecting embryo cryopreservation , at least in selected cases, to again become available in Italy.
Details of the Court’s decision are expected in print within a few weeks. Until then, speculation will remain rampant. Watch out America! Here is a great example how legislative interventions can badly affect quality and quantity of medical care we citizens are receiving.
Media contact: 212-994-4400 x.4491 CHR's Media Blog is a compilation of potential story ideas gathered from infertility-related news, our research, and our opinion to facilitate open communication with the public on this increasingly relevant field of medicine.
Editors, reporters and producers are invited to contact CHR for background or clarification on any content posted here. Also, our team of fertility experts has considerable experience providing comments for publication on infertility-related subjects and participating on broadcast panels to share our expertise.
