AN UNBALANCED SCALE: ANONYMOUS BIRTH AND THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

A venti anni dalla sua approvazione, la Convenzione di Oviedo necessita di un aggiornamento. Infatti, non affronta la questione del diritto dei bambini nati da fecondazione eterologa di conoscere l’identità dei donatori di gameti. La Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo ha recentemente stabilito che: a) il diritto di conoscere le proprie origini biologiche è tutelato dall’art. 8 della Convenzione dei diritti dell’uomo; b) tale diritto deve essere bilanciato con quello della madre biologica di rimanere anonima (c.d. parto anonimo). Al fine di trovare tale bilanciamento, una possibile soluzione consiste nel richiedere ai giudici di convocare la madre per chiederle se intende revocare l’anonimato. Se la madre ribadisce la propria originaria intenzione di rimanere sconosciuta, il Tribunale non può consentire al figlio di conoscere la sua identità. Gli autori analizzano anche altre due questioni non prese in considerazione dalla Corte europea: a) l’equilibrio tra il diritto di conoscere le proprie origini e quello dei donator di gamete all’anonimato; b) se tale diritto dei bambini nati da fecondazione eterologa vincoli i genitori legali a rivelargli le modalità del concepimento. Tali problemi e l’importanza degli interessi in gioco inducono gli autori a sostenere che la scelta di usare il citato art. 8 come criterio di giudizio non è affatto ottimale. Appare preferibile affrontare queste questioni attraverso un aggiornamento della Convenzione di Oviedo o comunque con modalità tali da arrivare ad una regolamentazione che sia uniforme all’interno dell’Unione europea. ---------- Twenty years since it was opened for signature, the Oviedo Convention needs updating. It does not deal with the issue of the donor-conceived children’s right to know the identity of the gamete donors. The European Court of Human Rights has recently stated that: a) the right to know one’s biological background is protected by article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights; b) such a right must be balanced with the biological mother’s right to anonymity (anonymous birth). In order to find such balancing, a possible solution might be to require judges to summon mothers to ask them whether they would like to reverse their decision to be anonymous. If the mother reaffirms her intention to remain unknown, the court may not allow the child to learn of her identity and contact her. The authors also analyze two other issues not taken into account by the European Court: a) the balancing between the right to know one’s origins and the gamete donors’ right to anonymity; b) whether the donor-conceived children’s right to know would make it mandatory for legal parents to disclose conception procedures. These problems and the importance of the interests at stake induce the authors to argue that the choice to keep using the above mentioned article 8 as yardstick is far from ideal. It appears to be far preferable to deal with these issues while updating the Oviedo Convention or in such a way as to incentivize the enactment of legislation that would be uniform throughout the European Union.

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Anonymous birth versus child's right to identity

Pravni zapisi ◽

10.5937/pravzap0-34192 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 443-463

Author(s):

Tamara Mladenović

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Legal System ◽

Biological Origin ◽

Child Rights ◽

Rights Of The Child ◽

Anonymous Birth ◽

European Court ◽

National Legal System ◽

Conflicting Interests ◽

The Right

The right to identity of the child, internationally recognized by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is one of the most important in the corpus of child rights. Its structure is complex since it includes several narrower rights. Nevertheless, the situations where it comes to restriction of the right to identity are not negligible. One of them is the right to anonymous birth, the possibility acknowledged by legislators in a certain number of European countries. Conflicting interests between a mother and a child are inevitable consequence of the anonymous birth. The aim of this article is to compare the right to identity of a child and the mother's right to anonymous birth as insurmountable barrier in determining biological origin. Special attention is paid to the possibility of establishing an adequate balance between their interests, by comparing the importance that national legal system offers to each of them, with appropriate arguments, several different models of motherhood regulations are presented and can be found in European legislations. The analysis also includes the stances of international bodies, especially the European Court of Human Rights.

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