Assisted Procreation in Italy. A long and winding road

The aim of this chapter is to describe the Italian legal framework as characterized by the very restrictive Law no.40 of 2004 which has been completely “rewritten” by the Constitutional Court. By declaring the illegitimacy of most of its norms, the Court has transformed the initial content of the law. The article focuses on both the long complex political and legal path that has led, years after the first jurisprudential decisions, to Law no. 40 and the period following the law, with attention paid to the most problematic issues within the Italian experience. Analysis of the various issues will shed light on the impact of the specific regulatory provisions and the law as a whole. In order to scrutinize the system in its entirety, data relating to the number of treatments, infrastructures and cost in the country will be given.