Final vote today on Health Law represents a serious challenge for medical ethics

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Alliance VITA denounces the vote for the measures, added by amendment on the sly and without real public debate, which will cause a drift in French medical ethics.

Among the measures, Alliance VITA is particularly alarmed by :

• elimination of the 7-day period of reflection before having recourse to an interruption of pregnancy. This decision is not respectful of women, or their doctors, whereas it is a definitive act with human lives at stake. On the contrary, Alliance VITA reminds us of the urgency for a real prevention policy for abortion.
• recourse to post-mortem organ harvesting, based uniquely on the principle of “presumed consent”, without seeking prior agreement from family members. Alliance VITA regrets the utilitarian concept of medicine: to obtain more transplants, without taking the family’s wishes into account, is a denial of humanity.
• autorisation of biomedical research on gametes and embryos, in the framework of medically assisted reproduction, for biomedical research where the boundaries are blurred and can also be performed for purposes of gestation. Whereas such measures concern bioethical laws and require the most extreme caution, since it involves human embryos, the government obtained parliamentary approval to once again exceed the legal framework for this type of research. Moreover, this initiative contradicts the principles proposed for authorizing embryo research in 2013, notably that embryo research would be performed under the control of the Biomedical Agency.

Furthermore, Alliance VITA once again expresses its’ concern that the consequences of other measures still attempting to trivialize even more access to abortion: especially those for mid-wives and those which lead to fixing quotas for the number of abortions to be performed per institution. However, VITA notes with satisfaction the PM’s wise decision to refuse outlawing embalming in the homes of the deceased.