Evita, an Italian HR professional, always envisioned starting a traditional family.
As Evita approached 40 without a partner, she realized that her dream of motherhood would mean going solo.
“I’ve always loved children and imagined having a family with a husband and many kids,” she reflects. “But there comes a time in life when you have to decide what you want and who you will become.”
In a country with a declining birth rate, one of the lowest fertility rates globally, and an aging population, the desire of women like Evita to embrace motherhood should be welcomed. Yet in Italy, the government restricts in vitro fertilization (IVF) to heterosexual, married women, even in private clinics. Single women and same-sex couples must seek fertility treatments abroad, often traveling to countries like Spain or the UK.
Evita is taking a different approach
Rather than leaving Italy for treatment, she has launched a legal battle for access to IVF at home. With the backing of the Luca Coscioni Association (ALC), a group that advocates for human rights in medical care, she has filed a lawsuit arguing that Italy’s restrictions on IVF for single women violate both the country’s constitution and the European Human Rights Convention. Another unmarried woman, 36 and financially stable, has joined her in this legal fight.
Last month, a court in Florence ruled that the women’s case has merit, suggesting that Italy’s IVF laws could infringe on constitutional rights to equality, health, self-determination, and the freedom to start a family. Now, the case will head to Italy’s constitutional court, where the outcome will be closely followed by many Italian women, including those who have undergone IVF abroad and wish to have additional children closer to home.
Evita remains hopeful. She believes that Italy’s two-decade-old law on assisted reproduction, passed during the government of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, is outdated and no longer reflects modern Italian society.
“People are generally supportive — it’s hard to find someone against the idea of single mothers,” she says. “Italy needs a wake-up call. The law isn’t keeping pace with the times we live in. People are struggling to build families.”
Indeed, many children in Italy are already being raised outside traditional family structures. Between 2015 and 2021, more than 211,000 couples with children divorced, and the number of babies born out of wedlock continues to rise. In 2022, 42 percent of all births in Italy — 163,317 babies — were born to unmarried parents.
Despite Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s personal history — she was raised by a single mother and had her daughter before marrying her partner — her political stance continues to champion traditional family values.
Meloni stresses the importance of children having both a mother and a father, even as she laments the country’s growing demographic crisis, with the working-age population projected to shrink by 19 percent by 2040.
Removing barriers for women who want to become mothers
While no single solution can reverse Italy’s demographic decline, removing barriers to women who want to become mothers — regardless of their marital status — seems like a logical step forward.
Filomena Gallo, head of the ALC legal team, hopes the constitutional court will be bold enough to make the changes that Meloni’s conservative government is unlikely to pursue.
“We talk about family and increasing birth rates,” Gallo notes. “A woman can have a fling, get pregnant, and decide to keep the baby. But if the same woman wants to use IVF, she faces discrimination.”
Removing these barriers could help pave the way for a more inclusive approach to family building in a country that needs it most
The post Italy’s Single Women Fight for the Right to IVF appeared first on IVF Babble.
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