The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has upheld Italy’s right to ban human embryo donation for scientific research.

The ruling comes at the end of a case brought by an Italian citizen, Adelina Parillo, who, having sought pregnancy via in vitro fertilisation in 2002 with her partner, Stefano Rollo, subsequently decided against trying for a child when her partner was killed in Iraq, and opted to donate the five harvested embryos for medical research. However, shortly after this decision, Italy moved to ban such donations in 2004 and Parillo’s donation was declined. Parillo argued before the Strasbourg court that this action violated her rights to privacy and to private property because the embryos were generated before the law came into effect.

The ECHR was asked to weigh Italy’s desire to protect the unborn against an individual’s right to self-determination. It concluded that the embryo donations ban was “necessary” as it could find no evidence that donation in the Parillo case would have been backed by Rollo. Further, the court pointed out that “human embryos can’t be reduced to a piece of property, as defined in the European Convention on Human Rights while “the right invoked by Ms Parrillo was not one of [her] core rights,” as “it did not concern a crucial aspect of her existence and identity”.