Maciej Rzewuski

University of Warmia and Mazury, Poland

Title: The right to be a mother in Europe in the 21st century. Case Study of Poland

---

Biography

Abstract

The article concerns the issue of in vitro and post-mortem fertilization in light of the Infertility Treatment Act (ITA) of 25 June 2015, effective as of 1 November 2015. Through an analysis of the legal solutions in force pre-ITA, it identifies a legal loophole that precludes those women who are neither married nor in cohabitation with a man from implanting embryos created before 1 November 2015 from their gamete cells and the gamete cells of anonymous male donors. The legal solutions also make the transfer impossible if the embryo created pre-ITA comes from a partner donation and the gamete donor who died before declaring consent to the transfer. Simultaneously, they allow another woman to give birth to a child against the genetic mother’s will. Thus, the ITA contains exemptions explicitly limiting the rights of individuals to self-determination in matters pertaining to procreation, demonstrates gender discrimination against women, and constitutes a clearly anachronistic solution, whose axiology remains questionable