Qthat concerning irrevocability of man’s consent to Pma it is a historic and one-of-a-kind decision. With the judgment no. 161 of 2023 (editor Luca Antonini) the Constitutional Court has assessed that «compression is not unreasonablewith regard to the prospect of paternity, of man’s freedom of self-determination».
Pma, if the couple separates “the man cannot withdraw the consent”
The story that generated the appeal of the man in question before the Consulta is that of a husband who signs the consent form for the Pma (Medically Assisted Procreation). Times are getting longer, the embryos are cryo-frozen because the woman’s health is not perfect. And also the romance with the future father falters. The two separate.
But the day after the separation from his wife who wants to have those embryos implanted, the man withdraws the consent given to assisted fertilization. I can’t be forced to become a father: that thinks. And in court he demands his freedom to remain a childless man.
The “physical and emotional investment of women” in Pma
Nothing to do, says the Consulta. The consent that was given is irrevocable. And it is because there are paramount interests to safeguard. Primarily, woman’s health. Because it is she who, for access to PMA, has made «her own corporality available. With an important physical and emotional investment as a function of parenting involving risks, expectations and suffering. And that has a turning point when one or more embryos are formed».
To this investment, physical and emotional, which has led to the emergence of a concrete expectation of motherhood, «the woman lent herself by virtue of the entrustment in her determined by the man’s consent to the common parental plan».
Irrevocability of consent, a point of no return
The judges do not miss the drama that stirs – and is destined to grow – behind the question of principle. The ruling recognizes that “the rule has come to be placed at the limit of what has been defined as ‘tragic choices’ as they are characterized by thefailure to satisfy all conflicting interests involved in the case”.
Again, “the discipline of the irrevocability of consent takes the form of a point of no return, which can be coldly indifferent to the passage of time and the events of the couple”.
This is the current balance, says the Court. If Parliament then wants to revise the discipline of assisted fertilization, it can do so. «The search for a possible different point of balance between the opposing needs at stake can only be the responsibility of the legislator».
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