The Italian Constitutional Court has reconfirmed the legitimacy of the
ban on human embryo research. In last month’s decision, the Court declared that
Article 13 of Law 40, a 2004 law governing assisted procreation, was
constitutional.
This legislation was contested
by a couple who produced several embryos in an in-vitro fertilisation clinic. This
couple requested that “defective embryos” be used for genetic research although
this is prohibited by law 40.
Geneticist Bruno Dallapiccola
from Bambino GesùHospitalcommented
as follows on the decision: “An embryo is not simply a mass of cells
but something that deserves to be respected. The decision of the Constitutional
Court to uphold the ban on using frozen embryos for research, confirms this
principle”.He also expressed his scepticism about using human embryo stem cells: “The
results that many hoped for did not come to fruition.The idea that research
into embryo stem cells is currently useful for the treatment of serious
diseases is, in my opinion, only a slogan, which does not reflect reality.
Whereas adult stem cells have led to tangible results which are transferable to
clinical practice and induced pluripotent cells have resulted in the creation
of disease experimental models, embryo stem cells have led nowhere”.
We passed surrogacy in Ukraine, Biotexcom clinic. Ukrainian law allows egg donation, although egg donors must remain completely anonymous. This means that neither the donor nor the intended parents can get to know each other, including seeing pictures or in person.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, the legislation on ART practice in Ukraine allows the use of PGD with gender selection to choose the sex of the baby. Doing it by means of PGD means that it is carried out prior to the embryo transfer to the surrogate’s womb. It should be noted that using PGD for the determination of the embryo’s sex is permitted only to prevent an inherited condition related to the child’s sex. It is important to keep in mind that the law allows embryo donation and sperm donation, too. However, as we have mentioned above, at least the intended father must provide his DNA for the creation of the embryo in surrogacy arrangements.
I know this is not the idea of the embryo research at all. PGD is just the testing by means of which it's possible to predict the negative outcomes. Unfortunately, it's not 100 oer cent accurate. as only several random cells are tested. But as for the rest of cells - no one knows if any problem can be found among those. Moreover, the option is definitely not cheap. Its cost varies from 1k to 5k dollars, depending on a clinic. Biotexcom, on the contrary, has PGD included into its package price.
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