The Italian Catholic Church voiced outrage on Tuesday after a Sardinian court effectively green-lighted the screening of embryos produced using assisted fertility techniques.
The national bishops' conference, supported by numerous Catholic politicians, said the ruling was in "clear contrast" with Italian law on assisted fertility and with a recent Constitutional Court ruling.
"I thought judges were supposed to apply the law and that their interpretations were based on what the Constitutional Court decides," said Monsignor Giuseppe Betori, secretary of the conference.
The ruling by a judge in Cagliari upheld a mother's request that doctors should screen her in-vitro embryos for a hereditary blood disorder.
The woman, who was herself a carrier of the disease, only wanted the embryos implanted if she knew there was no chance they would develop the disorder.
Most observers assumed this was illegal under a controversial law passed in 2004, known as the 'legge 40', which imposes tight restrictions on assisted fertility techniques.
The law, pushed through parliament by an alliance of Catholic lawmakers on the left and right, forbids the screening of embryos before they are implanted in the mothers' womb.
The Catholic Church's position is that embryos are fully-fledged human beings and cannot be discarded on the basis of alleged 'defects'.
"We supported the legge 40 and we have no intention of going back on that," said Msgr Betori.
The judges who green-lighted the request for screening have not yet explained their decision.
Meanwhile, Catholics in the centre-right opposition called on Justice Minister Clemente Mastella to send in inspectors to verify the ruling's validity.
'TRAMPLED PREROGATIVES'.
"It is extremely serious that a court should bypass a law of the state," said Forza Italia Senator Maria Burani Procaccini. "The Cagliari judges have trampled on the prerogatives of parliament".
Catholic senators in the governing centre left have also criticised the Sardinian court's decision, noting that the Constitutional Court gave a negative response on this very question in November 2006.
The mother at the centre of the Cagliari court ruling was helped in her appeal by lawyers working for the libertarian Radical party, one of the most outspoken critics of the 'legge 40'.
The controversial ruling from Cagliari is seen as possibly the first crack in the raft of restrictions placed on assisted fertility in Italy.
A leading Radical, European Affairs Minister Emma Bonino, welcomed the green light for the Sardinian mother, saying it was "a bit of good sense".
