As the French Senate begins to examine the bioethics bill today, Alliance VITA urges the senators to be bold and wise, but cautious to amend the text while there is still time.
Caroline Roux, Alliance VITA’s Assistant General Delegate insists: “We call upon the senators to make a thorough analysis of the implications of this text. Their duty is not to give in to illusions of progress where humans are selected and technologically created, instead of protecting the rights of the most vulnerable, the children and even humanity itself. The dignity of mankind and human rights are at stake. Senators must promote a society that refuses discrimination and injustice as a consequence of a misleading definition of progress.”
Should we call it progress to hide paternity behind artificial procreation techniques?
Should we call it progress when a man’s role is just to supply gametes, thus deliberately depriving him from any filiation with his child?
Should we call it progress when motherhood is a technological achievement, with hormonal treatments imposed on women without any medical reason? Should we call it progress to freeze oocytes with the illusory promise of motherhood, which can never be guaranteed?
Should we call it progress when justice turns a blind eye to the violations of the law implied by the commodification of the body of foreign surrogate mothers?
Should we call it progress to “track down anomalies” and to eliminate vulnerable people rather than welcome them and try to find treatments for them?
Should we call it progress when the human embryo – and at one time all of us were human embryos – is used as lab material, to be genetically modified, to create chimeras by combining its cells with animal cells, or even used to produce artificial gametes?
Should we call it progress when human integrity is no longer respected, and scientists are allowed to play God?
Alliance VITA believes that society will progress provided that fatherhood, motherhood, differences and the integrity of the human race are respected.
Along with “March for the Children” Alliance VITA is calling for a large turnout in front of the Senate on January 21 and 22 at 7:00 pm to urge the senators to review the text of this law, which as it stands, does not deserve to be called ‘bioethical’.
