Reviewer's report
Title:Italian law on medically assisted reproduction: do women's autonomy and
health matter?
Version:5Date:3 February 2016
Reviewer: Caroline Jones
Reviewer's report:
Comments:
This is much improved from the earlier version. I still think, especially given the
title, that more emphasis could be placed on 'women's health' and their
'autonomy' - the article tends to talk around these issues, rather than critically
reflecting on what aspects are especially problematic for women's health and
autonomy specifically (as opposed to many other forms of discrimination etc). So
this would be a shift in emphasis rather than an entirely different piece of writing.
Minor revisions: linguistic ones -
35 replace ‘asking’ with ‘seeking’
37 Over ten years on, little remains of Law 40/2004, following rulings by the
Italian Constitutional Court.
39-42 In 2009, the Constitutional Court declared the maximum limit of the
number of embryos to be produced and transferred for each cycle (i.e. three), as
stated in the original version of the law, to be constitutionally illegitimate.
44 couples (not couple)
51 suggest replacing ‘on’ with ‘regarding’
52 suggest changing to ‘highlighted in this article’
62 remove ‘a’ before legislation
64-5 suggest replacing with:
who considered it necessary to have rigorous and detailed legislative control and
those who regarded only minimal legal intervention necessary in relation to the
access and use of MAR
65 remove the comma after ‘years’
81 ‘from’ not ‘form’ – also insert ‘and’ before ‘monitors’
83 ‘equipment’ not equipments
89-90: suggest replacing with: The law also established that a maximum of three
embryos could be produced and used in …
92 health problems? Or any problems for the mother?
96 replace ‘to Civil’ with ‘the Civil’
97 remove ‘the’
98 should be ‘interpretations’
99 ‘rulings’ not ruling
101 remove ‘to’ before PGD
114 replace ‘sterile’ with ‘infertile’ (or some other appropriate term)
125 do you mean now (as in 2016)? Or the time of the ruling?
126 discriminated (not discriminate)
128 Couples who were fertile but …
133 ‘has’ not ‘have’
135 prevents not prevent
144 replace ‘sterile’ with ‘infertile’ (or some other appropriate term)
152 ‘treatment’ rather than ‘cures’
163 ‘infertility’ rather than sterility?
165 ‘infertility’ rather than sterility?
178 remove ‘to’ before donor
180 remove ‘and sterile’
207 ‘discriminates’ not discriminate
220-221 suggest: numerous decisions by Italian judges, law 40/2004 is still a law
248 remove ‘and sterile’
250 suggest replacing ‘However till now there’ with ‘However, at the time of
writing there
253 should ‘sentence’ be ‘ruling’ or ‘decision’? In the UK context we’d use the
term ‘sentence’ in the criminal law context but not re civil (private) law actions.
275 ‘authors’ not ‘Authors’
280 ‘can’ not ‘cab’
316 remove ‘s’ before MAR
321 20.7% not 20,7%
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.