On August 1, 1996, due to the expiration of the
five-year preservation limit provided by British law for
unclaimed and legally unusable frozen embryos, 3,300 embryos
were thawed and discarded. In Italy the news of this
impending event triggered many reactions among scholars
as well as the general population. In Massa, a little
town in Tuscany, a most unusual response arose.
Two hundred women banded together and asked to carry out
a prenatal adoption. Their purpose in making this request
was to avoid what they believed to be mass infanticide.
Many of the women were married and already had children.
They belonged to a local Catholic association. Nonetheless,
their reaction was their own response to numerous appeals
to respect life by the Catholic Church worldwide and by
Italian Catholic thinkers especially.