On saturday, 7th February around 4000 people protested in Bologna, Italy, against the new italian law that puts severe limitations on artificial insemination and genetic & embryologic research. In Italy, the use of biotechnological methods for giving birth to a child is only consented to spouses or heterosexual couples living together. Based on an unclear and undefined ‘bio-ethical’ model, promoted by the vatican, an italian woman can’t receive any sperm cell but the ones from her husband or ‘fixed’ partner. The law openly discriminates singles, homosexuals, infertile individuals and persons suffering from HIV or genetic diseases, in their desire for having a child. With Saturday’s demonstration in Bologna, a national campaign of protest has been launched against a law that brings Italy back to the times of inquisition and fascism.

While throughout Europe thousands of infertile and homosexual couples resort to spermbanks, surrogate mothers and in-vitro fertilization, the Italian parliament voted law 1514 that limits artificial insemination and openly denies the diversity of contemporary forms of cohabitation. The main injustices and risks of this new law were discussed during a series of seminars that preceded the national manifestation of 7th February in Bologna, Italy :

Punishability of the desire for having a child
Huge penalties (200.000-600.000 euro) are laid down by law 1514 for artificial fertilizations that use a sperm cel or egg that doesn’t originate from one of the spouses or partners living together. Doctors that venture to organize a sperm bank or to freeze embryos risk a penalty from 600.000-1.000.000 euro and the denial of practicing their profession during a period from 3 months until two years.

Discrimination of infertile people and patients of hereditable diseases
Heterosexual couples with one of both partners suffering from infertility or a hereditable disease are the biggest group of people that resort to artificial fertilization. But the law doesn’t permit the use of a sperm cell coming from any other man than the husband or partner. Likewise, the implantation of an egg inside the uterus of a surrogate mother is legally impossible, because the law forces the surrogate mother to recognize the child legally.

Discrimination of singles and attack on the gay community
The law denies the social evolution towards other forms of cohabitation (homosexual couples, singles,..) than the classical man-wife family. It is obvious that without the sperm from another man or the womb from a surrogate mother no single or homosexual man or woman can ever become a parent. But the law doesn’t only discriminate the desire for a child of the gay community. The law is also a legal attack on the recognition of the gay community.

Sergio Lo Giudice (ArciGay, un PACS avanti, Bologna) :
For the first time in Italian history a law determines that a couple consists out of two persons from different sexes (Art. 5). This explicit definition is a first step in the repression of the Italian gay community. Before this law repression was left to moral institutions (like the catholic church), but art.5 of law 1514 gives now a legal basis for repression on gays. The explicit formulation of law 1514 can’t be a coincidence, because gays recently expressed their strong wish to be legally recognized as a couple (at is the case e.g. in Belgium).

Freezing of genetic research
Nino Guglielmino (Clinica Hera, Catania):
The ban on genetic manipulation and cloning of human cells freezes the chance of recovery of about 10 million italians suffering from diseases that might be cured through genetic research.

Secularization
The law refers to a ‘bio-ethical’ model that isn’t specified but clearly amounts to the vision of the catholic church on the composition of a family, reproduction, artificial fertilization, cloning, use of condoms and abortion:

• a (married) couple only consists out of a male and a female partner
• before artificial fertilization can be admitted, the couple is forced to make love without condom during the 12 months that precede the treatment
• during the treatment a maximum of three embryos can be produced and all three (also eventually unhealthy embryos) must be inserted into the uterus

All this endangers the laical character of the Italian state and thus the constitutionality of the Italian Republic. Technically, legislation can’t be based on the subjective consciousness of one single group in society, in this case the catholic church. The most flagrant infringement is the ‘conscientious objection’ that the medical staff can exert, even if the artificial fertilization is accepted under the conditions of law 1514. This paragraph shows that, as the catholic church continuously denies the social reality, it needs legislation to give her ideology a chance to survive. Social reality though is so rich of different affective relations between persons from the same or different sexes or generations, that no law will ever be able to ‘legislate’ them.

Attack on the law on abortion
The law defines the legal recognition of the embryo as a juridical object and thus creates a leading case to attack italy’s law on abortion.

Confirmation of patriarchy
The family model (family with 1 man, 1 woman and their children) of law 1514 hides a statemodel that doesn’t want to spend money on nursery and leaves childcare completely to the family and especially the wife (according to the law a woman has to accept to be the legal mother of the child that she gave birth to after a artificial fertilization).

AntagonismoGay (Bologna):
Through law 1514 the patriarchal society model is again confirmed: a woman only receives a legal right on motherhood in relation to a man. Central to patriarchy is also the legal regulation of the uncertainty of fatherhood within a marriage: the law takes any doubt away because the male partner is obliged to accept paternity.

Fascism?
Like many other laws that have been voted during the Berlusconi government, also law 1514 seems to contain hidden forms of racism and fascism.

Angelo Aiello (Association Amica Cicogna):
Also mussolini’s law didn’t allow the donorship of embryos. Why are these kind of laws voted in our multicultural society? Is it to ‘protect’ the Italian race ?!!?

Privatisation of the desire for having a child
Law 1514 treats the desire for having a child and artificial fertilization as if they were luxury products, just like cosmetic operations. Millions of people want a child through artificial fertilization and the market is smelling a business of billions. The Berlusconian government and law 1514 shows the market the way to the privatization of the desire for having a child. The laws contains a list of the (private) institutions that receive the permission to engage in fertilization treatments. Not a single budget has been reserved for people that cannot pay for the treatment.

{Pictures 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 } {Video 1 | 2}