Italian court overturns divisive ban on donor eggs, sperm

By Naomi O’Leary ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s constitutional court overturned a ban on using donor sperm and eggs in fertility treatments on Wednesday, knocking down part of a divisive set of restrictions on assisted reproduction. But Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin, from the socially conservative New Centre Right party, said parliament would have to debate how the court order could be applied. Couples in predominantly Catholic Italy have launched a string of legal challenges to restrictions included in “Law 40”, passed by the then center-right government of Silvio Berlusconi in 2004. But in Italy, they have been opposed by a conservative establishment influenced by the Catholic Church, which rejects non-traditional conception and opposes the discarding of embryos with defects, believing an embryo should be treated as a person from the moment of conception.