World IN BRIEF : ITALY : Pregnancies Spark Fertility Debate

Moves to outlaw pregnancies for older women were debated after an outcry over the work of Dr. Severino Antinori. The storm initially broke in Britain after a 59-year-old businesswoman gave birth to twins after artificial fertilization at Antinori’s Rome clinic. Antinori subsequently revealed that an Italian, Rossana Dalla Corte, who will be 63 in February, is pregnant. Grazia Zuffa, a senator of the Democratic Party of the Left, said, “It seems hypocritical to me that there is this outcry over ‘granny-mums’ but if an elderly man fathers a child, it is seen as a sign of virility.” Romano Forleo, a gynecologist and Christian Democratic senator, said, “This kind of artificial fertilization is totally unnatural.”