Looking for a short story about a boy killed by his girlfriend's anti-pregnancy kit

Question

I read this short story about 15 years ago, dystopic future where humans are divided into castes and at the top of the oligarchy there are the wealthiest and the ones with the right genes, i.e. one of your ancestors was a genius like Einstein, based on the hypothesis that eventually those genes will be embodied in another genius.

The story is about a rich girl who has a boyfriend coming from the poor and illiterate; however this boy is very intelligent, can read, write, play the piano marvelously etc. The girl's father is not against the relationship, maybe because he was not that brilliant, but in the right position due to one of his ancestors, but the mother and her brother (not sure about this latter relationship) are totally against it.

Unfortunately for the young lovers, the girl's mum gives her secretly an anti-pregnancy medicine that will kill anyone who is not from the right caste if an intercourse happen.

the story ends with the girl and his father mourning over the dead boyfriend.

What is author and or the name of the story?

P.S. I read the story in italian so, considering translation and publishing times, it might be dated much older than 2000's

Answer 1

The story is almost certainly "The Price of Civilization" (1992) by Charles Sheffield and later appeared in FUTURE QUARTET Earth in the Year 2042 : A Four-Part Invention (in Italian, "Il prezzo della Civiltà", published in 1997 in Urania #1301 titled "Anno 2042"). The quote below is from Amazing Stories #67.

Alla fine tutto si era risolto bene, ma se Beth avesse detto fin dall'inizio a suo padre quel che stava succedendo, lui le avrebbe reso le cose molto più facili. Todd avrebbe trovato il modo di spiegarle la faccenda, e tutto sarebbe "finito", subito. Sarebbe riuscito a convincerla. Sapeva di poterlo fare. Ma non ne aveva avuto la possibilità.

(back-translation to English mine)

In the end all ended well, but had Beth but told his father everything from the beginning, he could have made things so much simpler for her. Todd would have been able to explain it to her, and the matter would have been closed, at once. He would have convinced her. He knew he could have done it. But he hadn't had the chance.

The dead boy was called Danny Shawner, if that helps, and was a member of ELITE - which I think meant "not required to read or write functionally", and in Italian was rendered with the horrible backronym of *Esonerati dal Leggere-scrivere In Totale Esercizio-funzioni".

The boy is indeed brilliant and self-taught himself how to read and write, and in the words of Beth's father "he has terrific musical ability" and "he's brighter than I am"; he actually could pass himself (not intentionally) for an upper caste, and was "given away" by his address in the slums. The father isn't opposed, the mother and her brother are dead against the relation.

The girl gets "immunized" at her mother's behest with the "special immunization (of the Inner Circle)", which is actually a secret, fast-acting neuroactive virus with obligatory sexual transmission, to which all the upper crust is unknowingly immunized, and gengineered to dissolve ninety minutes after death.