Twenty-five licenses issued for assisted reproduction since law change

Twenty-five licenses for assisted human reproduction to women aged 52 to 54 have been issued in Greece a month since a change in the law extended the age limit.

The legislation, which was voted into law on July 19, raised the age limit to 54 from 50 and allows assisted reproduction even if it is not a medical necessity. Before the change, the method was allowed only when a woman could not have a child naturally or when doctors wanted to avoid the transmission of a serious hereditary disease to the child.

According to the National Authority for Medically Assisted Reproduction, the number of children born in Greece to women over 50 years old “cannot be ignored” as, according to official statistics, 136 births of children by women of this age group were recorded in 2020.

The vast majority of those pregnancies, if not all, resulted from treatments carried out abroad, since Greece lacked the required legal framework.