Italy vows to control fertility treatments

The case of Professor Severino Antinori, an Italian doctor who provided in vitro fertilisation treatment for a 59 year old British woman, has generated moves for tighter regulation of fertility treatment in Italy. The National Bioethics Committee said last week that it will publish guidelines on in vitro fertilisation at the end of the month.

A Christian Democrat, Romano Forleo, has meanwhile tabled a private member's bill to limit the age at which women can be treated. “It's a serious matter that an aging English woman can obtain in Italy what her own country refused on ethical grounds,” said Senator Forleo.

A spokesperson for the National Bioethics Committee, which includes some 40 doctors, professors, gynaecologists, and psychologists, this week accused Italian doctors of “losing sight of the moral and ethical implications of their work.” “We have to consider what's best for children born to elderly mothers. People always talk of the mother's needs, rarely those of the child,” said Professor Adriano Ossicini, president of the committee.

The committee's long awaited guidelines will provide parliament with the basis to regulate fertility treatment in Italy. “There is no law, even though practically every political party has proposed one,” said Luigi La Ratta, president of the National Association for Demographic Control.

The lack of legislation reflects the lobbying power of the fertility clinics. There are some 300 private fertility clinics charging up to 40 millionlira (pounds sterling 16 000 or $24 000) for treatment. More worryingly, the absence of legislation has encouraged the growth of clandestine clinics. Just 20 of the country's 80 sperm banks are now linked to Cecos, the official centre for the collection and study of eggs and sperm.

Professor Antinori has already been ostracised by the Italian medical community for his development of controversial infertility treatments. At his private clinic in Rome he claims to have treated over 1000 women, with 35 women aged over 50 having given birth. In the wake of the British controversy Professor Antinori further fuelled the Italian debate by announcing that he was treating a 63 year old farmer's wife from Viterbo. The woman, Rosanna Dellacorte, is three months pregnant and could become the oldest mother on record.

Some of the fiercest opposition to the professor's work has come from the Catholic church. The Vatican's newspaper, Osservatore Roman, denounced an operation performed by Professor Antinori in 1988 as killing off “the dignity of a woman.”

Professor Antinori's clinic in Rome is situated several hundred metres from the Pope's residence in St Peter's Square.

The Pope:only meters away from Professor Antinori's fertility clinic

*Figure Omitted*