Contesting Rights: Bioconstitutionalism and the Debate on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis in Italy

The main objective of this work is to explore how constitutional rights figure in social controversies around new biomedical technologies and to highlight the possible advantages, problems and difficulties that the use of rights as benchmarks for their regulation involves. It does so by drawing on the concept of bioconstitutionalism. To address this issue, this work is mainly based on a case study: the exploration of a social controversy around a technology known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in Italy. Exploring the different roles that rights have played in the Italian controversy, as well as the different ways in which they have been used, appealed to, shaped, and implemented, this work thus seeks to contribute to exploring the problems of using rights in social controversies around new biomedical technologies.