In medically assisted procreation, the donor man's consent is not revocable after the fertilization of the egg. This was ruled yesterday by the Constitutional Court. In the case under consideration, a woman had requested the implantation of the cryopreserved embryo, despite the fact that separation from her spouse had taken place in the meantime, and the latter had then objected by withdrawing the consent previously given, believing that he could not be obliged to become a father. The ruling pointed out that the irrevocability of consent appears functional to safeguard first and foremost overriding interests. Access to medically assisted procreation, in fact, entails "for the woman the serious burden of making available her corporality, with an important physical and emotional investment in parenting that involves risks, expectations and suffering, and that has a turning point at the moment when one or more embryos are formed. A woman's body and mind are thus inseparably involved in this process, which culminates in the concrete hope of begetting a child, following the implantation of the embryo in her uterus. To this investment, physical and emotional, which resulted in the emergence of a concrete expectation of motherhood" - according to the Court - "the woman had lent herself by virtue of the reliance in her determined by the man's consent to the common parental project".
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