science · 18 July 1994 · 30 years ago
In 1994, Rosanna Della Corte, a 62-year-old Italian woman, gave birth to a healthy son, Riccardo. Her egg was artificially imseminated by the sperm of her 63-year-old husband, Mauro, at Dr. Severino Antinori's fertility clinic in Rome, Italy. Rosanna Della Corte had earlier lost her only son at 17 in a terrible car accident. She had often tried to adopt another son, but in vain. These were the reasons she turned to the procedure. In reaction, restrictions were introduced in the Italian legislature in the wake of a papal encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, condemning in vitro fertilization and many of other high-tech fertility procedures.
OnThisDay.net