Considerations in the field of civil and criminal law of "surrogate motherhood "

Abstract

The article examines the considerations in the field of civil and criminal law of the phenomenon of "surrogate motherhood", and deals with the problem of the ethical frontier of scientific progress. The author identifies the risks connected to "substitutive" reproductive technologies and describes a series of bordeline case: the fragmentation of the maternal functions (ovulation, pregnancy, education) which technically can be attributed to various subjects; the consequent loss of maternal identity; the emphasis of a presumed right of the single person to procreation; the sacrifice-destruction of spare embryos; the psycho-social damage connected to the fragmentationof family structure and of the socially consolidated models of parenthood; the breaking down of the structure of the legai order that compromises the identity of the subject. Many questions are brought to the lawyer's attention: from the definition of a statute for the embryo, to the protection of the essential values, such as ihe family unit, to the protection of the value of procreation, to the lawfulness of the end and the means that characterize the applications in the scientific field. The considerations are culturally and legally supported in several national and intemational laws, Conventions and Declarations. The author then briefly analyses the legai solutions offered by various countries in the light of intemational principles. There is a need to formulate an overall discipline of the right to prenatal life, a criminal law type of organic control of the essential values and the need to predispose adeguate guarantees which intend to protect a wide series of complementary aspects of the secondary values, with specifications with respect to particular technical questions.