Debates about the effects of heterologous in vitro fertilization on filiation

Abstract

The advances achieved in Biotechnology, especially in the field of assisted human reproduction techniques, have led to changes in the way in which some legal institutions are currently conceived. Due to the intervention of donors of genetic material, heterologous in vitro fertilization overturns the foundations on which filiation has been maintained as a category of Family Law, giving rise to the possibility of a third type of filiation. The theoretical and doctrinal controversies generated for users by implementation of this technique in relation to filiatory presumptions and the dimension of informed consent transcend foreign systems in diverse solutions that are reflected in an equally varied manner in jurisprudence. Orders still exist which do not take these changes into account, generating a lack of protection of the rights of the subjects involved in their use; this situation merits the construction of norms to adapt the theoretical foundations of filiation to the reality of our society and evolving science.