[Press Release] French Bioethics: Warning against commodification of the human body

In the past few months, Alliance VITA has been invited to speak before the French National Consultative Ethics Committee (NCEC), the National Medical Academy, the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, and the Council of State. Now, on June 5^th, Alliance VITA takes note of the report issued for the French National Bioethics Consultations.

Among the topics discussed, a lot of attention has been focused on allowing single women or female couples access to ART. Nonetheless, Alliance VITA contends that infertility should be treated as a national public health issue, both for infertility prevention and for research, which could thereby trigger genuine therapeutic treatments.

But if women can access to ART for other reasons than for medical infertility, quite the reverse would happen. Actually, this would be an unprecedented deviation towards a human reproduction market, whether private or state controlled. In this reproductive business, men and women are regarded as laborers and producers of raw materials – oocytes, sperm, uterus – in order to produce infants, or even customized babies.

Alliance VITA cannot but acknowledge the convictions expressed throughout the participatory process: a high number of citizens have argued in favor of preserving reproduction based on alterity. Only a small minority have requested modifying the bioethics law on this point.

The point has now arrived when the politicians must voice their opinion. French President, Macron has stated his commitment for a peaceful discussion and it would be difficult to understand the politicians if they do not take into account the results of the National Bioethics Consultations.

As technology continues to progress, Alliance VITA voices its global vision  of reproduction and alerts against a human reproductive market composed of eugenic, unjust, and even totalitarian aspects which must be taken seriously.

In the coming days, Alliance VITA will launch a number of actions to inform the public and get people involved on these major issues, which affect our humanity and our future. France, as a country concerned about human dignity and opposed to the commodification of the human body and of its products, has a particular role to play in this field.