Chapter 8 - Scientific research and human reproduction: The prevalence of the embryo in the Italian legal system

In 2004, in Italy, it appears, for the first time, a law that regulates limits and the methods on assisted reproduction techniques. One of the principles on which is based the already famous 40 law, and that will strongly affect its forecast, is the protection of the human embryo, accompanied, in the structure of the regulatory text, a related limitation of other interests that they found a weaker response from the legislature. It is easy to detect the valorization of the human embryo in several steps; its correlation with the needs of scientific research are included in this framework, and we will try to provide some observations on the following pages, also in the light of important judicial interventions.