Abstract
This study originated from events that occurred in 2014 in an Italian hospital, where the embryos of a couple, obtained by means of homologous insemination, were mistakenly implanted into the uterus of another woman who, along with her husband, underwent the same treatment.Faced with this serious adverse circumstance, that gives rise to ethical and legal issues, the authors conducted a comparative examination of how to consider the division of maternity (between biological mother and uterine mother) and the related division of paternity (between genetic father and legal father, husband or partner of the gestational mother).Some preliminary observations are made concerning parenthood and filiation within the context of currently applicable Italian law.The following is a detailed analysis of the arguments in favour of the parental figures involved (gestational mother/genetic mother).
Highlights
The significance of health, in its most modern and evolved sense, as a general and inviolable expectation in one’s “search for happiness” [1] suggests that any prospect of not being able to fulfil one’s desire to become a parent is unacceptable.Assisted reproductive techniques have enormously extended the possibilities of “having a child” but at the same time they have further complicated the issues relating to the determination of filiation.The simplest situation seems to be that of so-called homologous assisted reproduction, where both partners in a couple participate and where there is a coexistence of biological, legal and social parenthood
Who can legitimately become a parent in cases where an embryo, obtained in vitro with oocytes and sperm from an identified couple, is implanted by mistake into the uterus of a women who is extraneous to the couple?
In Italy, in the last eighteen years only three cases have reached the pages of the national newspapers: two in Turin (2004) and Padua (2009), where on the morning of the implant the doctors realised the mistake and the women decided to have medical abortions. Another case occurred in 2014 at the Sandro Pertini Hospital in Rome where, because of a banal human error, two couples who had given their consent to assisted reproduction were assigned the embryos of the other
Summary
The significance of health, in its most modern and evolved sense, as a general and inviolable expectation in one’s “search for happiness” [1] suggests that any prospect of not being able to fulfil one’s desire to become a parent is unacceptable. The simplest situation seems to be that of so-called homologous assisted reproduction, where both partners in a couple participate and where there is a coexistence of biological, legal and social parenthood. Even in this field, controversial issues arise. Who can legitimately become a parent in cases where an embryo, obtained in vitro with oocytes and sperm from an identified couple, is implanted by mistake into the uterus of a women who is extraneous to the couple?
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