Female Convicts' Right to Biomedically Assisted Conception

In the prologue to his paper, the author presents a hypothetical case, posing a question whether a female convict serving a multi-year prison sentence in the Correctional Institution for Women in Požarevac, who cannot become pregnant naturally, could use a biomedically assisted fertilization procedure. The answer to that question implies an analysis of the Law on Biomedically Assisted Fertilization and the Instructions for the implementation of infertility treatment with biomedically assisted fertilization charged to mandatory health insurance funds. Before the author analyses the normative framework applied to the hypothetical case referred to in the prologue, he presents the facts related to the fertility rate in the Republic of Serbia in the introductory part of the paper. After establishing the conditions under which a woman can request biomedically assisted fertilization, it is necessary to determine whether the legislator in the Law on Execution of Criminal Sanctions has envisaged such a possibility. The next part of the paper is dedicated to a review of the mentioned normative framework through a hypothetical case, whereby the author deems necessary to analyse the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in order to compare it with the situation in the Republic of Serbia regarding the exercise of this right. In the conclusion of the paper, the author presents certain dilemmas regarding the conditions under which a convicted woman can exercise her right to biomedically assisted fertilization, while encountering obstacles in practice.