The more advanced age in which you decide to become pregnant, environmental pollution, which reduces fertility and scientific progress in prenatal diagnosis are the factors that lead a couple to approach the world of reproductive medicine. In this area, especially in assisted reproduction techniques have become more familiar to the general public have in vitro fertilization (IVF), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and intrauterine insemination (IUI).
In Italy, these procedures are governed by Law 40, which came into force in 2004. It allows the use of this medical specialty in the case of “reproductive problems deriving from human infertility or infertility (…) if there is no other effective treatment methods to remove the causes of sterility or infertility (…) aimed at a unique and modern facility, but no more than three. “.
The same source prohibits the use of heterologous fertilization (external donor) and using embryos for experimentation. And ‘allowed a unique, contemporary plant of no more than three embryos and prohibited the conservation of the same through cryopreservation. It ‘also prohibited the selection of the healthy embryo even in cases of possible hereditary diseases. Following a heated debate ethical and scientific, these points have been declared illegal by the Constitutional Court. A sentence by the European Court of Human Rights has also ruled that the law to allow infertile couples to have recourse to heterologous in vitro fertilization does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights as Human. Because of these operations following, the 40 is now confused, fraught with consequences inapplicable and embarrassment in specialist centers of reproductive medicine.
Always the assisted procreation is observed carefully because of the health risks they are exposed to the mother and fetus. These will lead back to hormonal ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome, treatable with appropriate specialist indications. Much attention has been given to ethical and moral implications of such procedures, which involve the very nature of human beings and the concept of life. As President of the Italian Committee Myelin Project, which deals with rare neurological diseases, I would like to draw attention to a point now strongly felt and simultaneously challenged: I refer to cases in which parents are potential carriers of genetic diseases and wish for their children a life worth living. This takes considerable importance in the Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), a procedure in which embryos produced with the Human Assisted Reproductive techniques (ART) are analyzed and selected from the genetic point of view before being transferred into the womb.
Currently, in cases where there is a risk of a genetic disorder in the head to the unborn child, it is foreseen the possibility to perform the chorionic villus sampling (CVS) or amniocentesis. They are both widely used diagnostic techniques, but possible only when the fetus has already developed in the womb. In the event of a positive finding of inherited disease, the couples have – as the only alternative – the choice to terminate the pregnancy or carry it out anyway. PGD ??allows, however, the selection of embryos free of the disease. avoids, therefore that is implanted the sick cell sketch which, after, will form the embryo and the unborn child. As Man, as a Catholic, as a citizen, I wonder if it is possible to block a more ethical life exactly as in intrauterine contraception – which prevents the implantation of an embryo – or forced therapeutic abortion, when it arms, head and internal organs, such as the heart and brain, have already developed. I think it is clear that a law requiring that effect and may be considered an offense to human dignity
Realized by Martina Delser
