Alliance VITA’s Response to French Prime Minister

On the eve of Father’s Day, Alliance VITA published the results of the IFOP opinion poll which clearly demonstrate that the French people are very attached to the role of the father. The overwhelming majority (91%) believe that the father plays an essential role in a child’s upbringing; 79% think that children who did not know their father are at a disadvantage; and 55% are opposed to using ART if it would deprive a child of a father.

Tugdual Derville, Alliance VITA’s General Delegate, comments:

” The revision of the bioethics law is nothing but a priority for the French (as shown by the opinion poll “The French and implementing measures after the national debate”) and yet the Prime Minister takes the risk to profoundly divide French citizens. Extending the French ART laws beyond cases of medically-diagnosed infertility would intentionally deprive children of a father, diverge medical care from its therapeutic role, and would turn the country into a sordid procreation market, incompatible with human dignity. By betraying his former convictions, the French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, goes even further than former president François Hollande. He is pushing us to march in the streets like the “yellow-vest” protestors, driven by the desire to protect the child from being deprived of any paternal reference point in his identity. In the long term, what do we gain by overturning French laws towards a system that changes the child into a right that is demanded and obtained, and the man into a gamete producer?

The French are very attached to the figure of paternity: the majority opposes ART which intentionally deprives children of a father. This law, which pretends to give new rights, would actually create three inequalities:

• between children, according to whether or not they have a father;
• between women, according to whether or not they are the “real” mother;
• and between men and women who will inevitably demand surrogacy on the grounds of non-discriminatory provisions.

This justifies a rebellion! “