Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 142
June 2011
Costa and Pavan v. Italy (communicated case) - 54270/10
Article 8
Article 8-1
Respect for family life
Respect for private life
Inability of healthy couple with high risk of transmitting hereditary illness to obtain genetic screening of embryo prior to implantation: communicated
Article 14
Discrimination
Inability of healthy couple with high risk of transmitting hereditary illness to obtain genetic screening of embryo prior to implantation: communicated
In 2006, after their first child had been born with cystic fibrosis, the applicants learned that they were both healthy carriers of the disease. According to a document issued by the Italian Cystic Fibrosis Society, where both parents are healthy carriers of cystic fibrosis, there is a one in four chance that their child will be born with the disease, a one in four chance that the child will neither have the disease nor be a carrier and a one in two chance that the child will be a carrier. During her second pregnancy, the first applicant, anxious to ensure that the child would not be born with cystic fibrosis, underwent a prenatal test in February 2010, which revealed that the foetus likewise had the disease. She was therefore obliged to have an abortion. The applicants wish to undergo preimplantation genetic diagnosis as part of an in vitro fertilisation process. However, by law, screening of this kind is available only to infertile couples or where the male partner has a sexually transmitted viral disease.
Communicated under Article 8, taken separately and in conjunction with Article 14.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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