Italian Fertility Votes to Test Benedict (Bishops urge voter boycott)

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http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050611/API/506110754&source=rss>

Franca longs to have a healthy child, but she carries a blood-disease gene, so she underwent fertility treatment. She had her eggs screened for the condition, then implanted in her womb. But it didn't work - and Italian law makes it impossible for her to try again

Now she sees new hope in a series of referendums Sunday and Monday that will let the nation decide whether to loosen the restrictions on assisted fertility which cleared parliament last year. However, she and other Italians seeking help to have babies face a formidable opponent in the Vatican, which is waging a fierce campaign to maintain the limitations.


Turnout has to be more than 50 percent, and Italian bishops have urged a voter boycott, with Pope Benedict XVI's endorsement. The result will show how much influence the Vatican still wields in a country that is overwhelmingly Catholic but has increasingly strayed from church doctrine, notably by approving divorce and abortion in referendums.

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The fertility laws ban the freezing of embryos, and limit the number that can be created to three. They forbid sperm or egg donation from outside the couple and prohibit scientific research using embryos.