The Right to Know One's Genetic Origins: a Right in Need of Regulation

Leaving aside the evergreen ethical debate surrounding anonymous childbirth and donor insemination, this article analyses them adopting a fundamental rights approach. This approach brings out the growing importance accorded by Italian courts to the right to know one's genetic origins, which calls into question the right to anonymity of the anonymous mother and the gamete donor. Faced with this irreconcilable tension, the legislature is called upon to rethink the regulation of anonymous childbirth and donor insemination so as to ensure a proper balance between the fundamental rights and interests of the persons concerned, in the light of the principles developed by both the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights.