Bologna, March 10, 2021 – "It's perplexing that the Constitutional Court, regarding the rights of newborns, is referring the task of implementing protective measures to the "defaulting" legislature. Indeed, we see no sign of overcoming that default, and the High Court's appeal risks being yet another unheard plea. Obviously, we hope to be proven wrong, perhaps by a legislative initiative from Parliament or Minister Cartabia." Gabriele Piazzoni, general secretary of Arcigay, Comments on the reasons for rulings no. 33/2021 and 32/2021 regarding the protection of children born through surrogacy and heterologous fertilization, released by the Constitutional Court.
“With both sentences – explains the lawyer Salvatore Simioli, legal representative of Arcigay The Court incidentally reiterated that it is the legislator's duty to ensure full protection of the child's interests through the recognition of the child by the biological and intended parent. It therefore significantly called on the legislator to reform the institution of adoption, along the lines that the LGBTI community and Arcigay have been calling for for years, namely, ending the differential treatment between the children of homosexual and heterosexual couples. So-called stepchild adoption (Law No. 184 of May 4, 1983) for homosexual couples has been recognized only through case law since 2014 and results in a non-legitimating adoption of the partner's child. With ruling 32/2021, the Court also expressly reiterated the unequal treatment between homosexual and heterosexual couples in the case of recourse to ART and affirmed the "urgency of a law to guarantee newborns full rights to care, education, instruction, and stable emotional relationships" or urged the legislator to provide for a new type of adoption that promptly guarantees the full rights of newborns.
“In short, we are witnessing timid steps forward – he continues Piazzoni – With respect to the full recognition of family ties in the best interests of the child, it is indeed necessary to emphasize the illogicality of the continued ban on the automatic recognition of foreign birth certificates and judicial orders. Therefore, the intended parent, deemed a parent abroad, must initiate an adoption proceeding in order to assume parental responsibility. One should not be surprised, then, by the slow pace of justice in Italy, which is burdened by a complex process that conflicts with the child's best interests in having both parents (biological and intended) recognized as having parental responsibility from birth, with obvious emotional damage and damage to the child's rights that the solution proposed by the Constitutional Court only succeeds, in the perspective of a sought-after reform, possibly mitigating,” he concludes.
