The new guidelines on assisted reproduction they were published by the Ministry of Health in the Official Journal and therefore are in force. The guidelines are updated at least every three years, “in relation to technical-scientific evolution”.
New guidelines on assisted reproduction: what is the most important news?
The biggest news concerns the fact that after assisted fertilization of the egg, consent to ART can no longer be revoked. The woman can therefore request the implantation of the embryo even if her partner has died or if the two have broken up. The change in jurisprudence was imposed after two sentencesone from the Court of Cassation in 2019 and one from the Constitutional Court in 2023.
When is a couple infertile? When is a person sterile?
To be able to define an infertile couple you must be unable to conceive a child after one year of unprotected sexual intercourse. Instead, the person is sterile when a permanent physical condition does not allow conception.
New guidelines on assisted reproduction: who can access them?
Access to medically assisted procreation it is possible after six/twelve months – based on the age of the woman – of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.
Couples who have one can also turn to assisted fertilization transmissible genetic diseases or with diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B and C. Finally, it is also ok for couples in which one or both partners have resorted to therapy in the past cryopreservation of their gametes or gonadal tissue to preserve fertility.
As stated in the text of the guidelines for ART published by the Ministry of Health, medically assisted procreation techniques mean all those procedures that involve the treatment of human oocytes, sperm or embryos as part of a project aimed at achieving a pregnancy.
What are medically assisted procreation techniques?
These procedures, which can be performed with either the couple’s gametes or donated gametes, include:
intrauterine insemination; in vitro fertilization and intrauterine embryo transfer; intracytoplasmic sperm microinjection; cryopreservation of gametes and embryos; embryo biopsy to perform pre-implantation genetic testing.