★ Medically assisted procreation techniques are becoming more sophisticated, affecting many families and challenging the traditional concept of the natural family. A variety of true or false statements, prejudices, and slogans have been generated about the issue of surrogacy; how can we discern the truth of the information and look at it wisely? This book will provide true and scientific information from the perspectives of medicine and human nature, to help readers objectively understand the surrogacy issue.
★Medically assisted procreation is not only about individuals and families, but has also become the center of political and legal debates. This book calls on readers to cultivate scientific awareness, not to be influenced by false information and prejudice, and to make responsible political choices.

An essay that debunks a subject instrumentalised by politics and falsified in the media: that of surrogacy. It combines competence and expository clarity to explain this divisive issue from the medical and human point of view. Following the Italian House of Deputies’ passing of the “surrogacy universal crime” draft bill and the publication of Michela Murgia’s posthumous book on the subject, it is an essential guide for anyone wishing to form an informed opinion on a question that is complex and about which many inexact, biased and, at times, patently false views are aired.
Medically assisted procreation techniques have been implemented for about 50 years now and are evolving constantly. They have now been extended to families with diverse profiles and as a result the old concept of the natural family (already contradicted by anthropology) has been shattered. But in Italy these transformations have not been accompanied by a cultural overhaul and an appropriate updating of legal and legislative rules. The body-technique-parenthood relationship no longer corresponds to an experience shared by everyone and is now at the centre of a political and legal debate that betrays an approach that continues to be immature and inadequate. But thanks to techniques that have dismantled the certainties of the past, the question of birth that goes beyond what the body is capable of cannot be addressed solely with the logics of obligation and prohibition. What is needed is a scientific awareness conducive to political choices based on informed knowledge and not on prejudices and slogans.

Eva Benelli, a journalist, is a partner at the Zadig science communication agency. She specialises in institutional health communication, health promotion and the social impact of biomedical research. She is also head of communication and dissemination on a number of European projects and a member of the editorial team of the online newspaper Scienza in rete.