State Council Ruling: Current ART Conditions Are Not Unfair

by | September 30, 2018 | Medically Assisted Procreation

On Friday, September 28, the French State Council of State rendered a decision which upheld Toulouse University Hospital’s refusal to provide ART for two women without a male partner. They declared that distinguishing different treatment for them compared to a male-female couple is not contradictory to the principle of equality.
The two women filed an appeal at the Toulouse Administrative Court accusing the city’s University Hospital Center for ART of abusing their authority. The ART center had refused the women’s request for in vitro fertilization with a donor, based on their claim of infertility. On May 22, they filed a priority preliminary ruling on constitutionality, challenging the current bioethics law on the conditions allowing ART. The current law in force only allows ART for infertile couples or in situations risking a disease transfer to the child. The two women criticize the law as not upholding the legal principle of equality.
Indeed, since the constitutional reform on July 23, 2008, it is possible to contest whether a law already in force conforms to the Constitution: “The priority question of constitutionality is the right recognized to any individual, or party in a lawsuit, to contest any legislative provision contrary to the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. This verification is pronounced “a posteriori”, since the Constitutional Council examines a law already in force.”
The State Council esteemed that it was unnecessary for this matter to be referred to the Constitutional Council, ruling that the Toulouse University Hospital had not violated the principle of equality, the very one which is “guaranteed by the Articles 1 and 6 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen “.
In its decision, the State Council writes that: “the principle of equality does not preclude the legislator from regulating different situations in different ways and from derogating from equality for reasons of general interest”.  Concerning reproduction, male-female couples have a different situation compared to same-sex couples. It follows in the provisions of Article L. 2141-2 of the Public Health Code that by reserving access to assisted reproductive techniques (ART) for male-female couples, who are alive, of age to reproduce, and/or suffering from a medically diagnosed infertility, the legislator understood that ART was intended to remedy a couple’s pathological infertility, without which they would be unable to have children. The difference in treatment, resulting from the provisions criticized, between male and female couples and same-sex couples is directly related to the purpose of the law establishing it and thus it is not contrary to the principle of equality. Thus, this issue which has previously been raised, is not serious.“
This decision comes at a time when heated debates have been taking place regarding greater access to ART: with a donor, without a male partner, for single women, or female couples. In opinion # 129 on the Bioethics Law revision, the National Consultative Ethics Committee emphasizes that this request is “in a demand for freedom and equality in access to ART to respond to the desire to have a child “. The State Council’s ruling demonstrates that it is futile to employ the principle of equality.
However, on September 25th, when the president of the National Consultative Ethics Committee was interviewed by the parliamentary information mission for revising bioethical law, he stated that the principle of infertility would continue to apply to the male-female couples whereas it would not be required for single women or female couples. If increased access to ART is legalized, this would be discriminatory for male-female couples, in addition to the discriminations         against children who would be deliberately deprived of a father by the law.

Abortion Conscience Clause: France is Pushing for a Change

by | September 28, 2018 | News

On September 27, French Senator Laurence Rossignol announced tabling a bill to cancel the conscience clause specific to abortion, which has been criticized as being redundant with doctors’ general conscience clause.
Although unlikely to be passed, this bill shows a stronger ideological pressure on doctors. In reality, the general clause does not protect doctors who don’t want to perform abortions, as explained by Alliance VITA’s special report: Are there “two conscience clauses” for abortion?
About the recent and rather artificial controversy on the conscience clause, the French Health Minister, Agnès Buzyn, states her satisfaction that the number of abortions has leveled off: “What is somewhat reassuring, although not quite so, it is that the number of abortions in France has remained stable for the past ten years.
On September 28, 2018, the Directory for Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (“Drees”) published, the abortion statistics for 2017, which totaled 216,700 (compared to 770,000 births). For the past 14 years, France has had a high abortion rate, with an average of one in 3 women having an abortion.
 

[Press Release] French Bioethics Law: CCNE Ignores Ethics

[Press Release] French Bioethics Law: CCNE Ignores Ethics

by | September 25, 2018 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation, Press Releases

Alliance VITA disapproves of the recommendations given by the French National Consultative Ethics Committee (“CCNE”) which is willing to open the use of ART to couples without infertility pathology, whereas public authorities should be focused on fighting against medical infertility.

Alliance VITA believes that it is urgent to evaluate ART and its’ consequences, instead of permitting single women or same-sex couples to have access to it, which implies that children are deliberately deprived of a father.

Tugdual Derville*, Alliance VITA’s General Delegate states: “At the end of the French Bioethics Consultations French citizens confirmed their commitment to protecting the rights of the child. Yet the “CCNE”, which is largely composed of scientists, is still following the line of the scientific lobby. In fact, trivializing ART has deterred scientists from performing authentic research on infertility: especially causes induced by lifestyle – advanced age for pregnancy – or the degradation of environment, with endocrine disruptors. France is lagging behind in the field of therapies for restoring fertility. French citizens who are more frequently confronted with infertility, want this issue to be addressed, not a technical leap forward, which would overrule all the protective barriers for children. Instead of addressing this major public health issue, the “CCNE” is recommending “surrogacy for all”, which would change our country into a reproductive marketplace, unworthy of humanity. We warn our President that these announcements will incite massive citizen marches. “

Since there is not yet a national consensus, Alliance VITA reiterates its request for the government to maintain a status quo on surrogacy, and to establish a national priority to fight and prevent infertility.

In October, Alliance VITA will launch a widespread national awareness campaign to inform the public about the inherent dangers of a “surrogacy for all” policy. These exaggerated distortions would take us toward a reproductive marketplace where men and women would be treated as suppliers of raw material (sperm, oocyte, uterus) with the child as a product to be ordered or even “tailor-made”, as cited in “Custom-designed Babies” written by Blanche Streb **, Alliance VITA’s Director of Research and Development.

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* : cf. Time for Mankind – for a Revolution in Human Ecology, Edited by Plon

** : cf. Designer Babies – The World of the Best, Edited by Artège.

Surrogacy: Trapped by a Certain Conception of Artificial Conception?

by | September 21, 2018 | Medically Assisted Procreation

“I’d like to extract us out of a trap that is contaminating the surrogacy debate these days. This trap is consequentialism.
I’d like to suggest an exercise to explain the word, and the trap that goes with it. First of all, let’s consider how good it is for each of us to exist, no matter how we have been conceived. Life is good. Every life is respectable, unique, and irreplaceable. To acknowledge this and accept its inherent consequences, is a proof of compassion.
Having done this, I suggest that we go into our genealogical background (whatever we may know about it): our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and all our ancestors since the beginning of the human family … Here are my cousins – because genetics teaches us that we are all cousins – this forms a rather impressive gallery of family portraits. Now, we must acknowledge that at some level in this genealogy, everything has not always been easy regarding procreation. Common sense tells us that we were all born as a result of an accident, an injustice, a violence or even occasionally a criminal act… If some atrocities had not been committed in the past, many of us would not exist today! Does that mean that we should approve of these atrocities? Or else relinquish life? Of course not. If I shoulder any and all events that have resulted in my precious existence, I do not necessarily approve of them. This would be falling into the trap of consequentialism, which makes us approve of an act when its consequence is good. As if the end could justify the means.
Well, this is precisely what surrogacy promoters are currently doing when they exhibit the children born via surrogate mothers, to endorse this reproductive technique. A recent article from the “Parisien” was entitled: Born via Surrogacy: “Who can say that my existence is horrible?” But nobody says that. Especially not me. Every life is welcome. But this does not mean that we should approve of a reproductive technique which is a mistreatment exploiting and shattering motherhood. Since life is the result, according to this strange pro-life standpoint, this is a proof that the means are good. Well no! Otherwise, we would have to endorse right now artificial uteruses, and acts of sexual violence which led to conception! Every mistreatment must be refused and fought. And what was true for my ancestors still holds true for my own conception.
It is something difficult to admit for children born via surrogacy, because their love for life and for their parents is used to praise this reproductive technique which bears good fruit, i.e. their own life, but simultaneously turns them into innocent victims. A tragical trap that needs to be eluded! ”
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Editorial Tugdual Derville’s Editorial, September 21, 2018 (RCF)
 

French Order of Physicians Takes Odd Bioethical Viewpoint on ART

by | September 21, 2018 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation

On September 19th, the Directors of the National Order of Physicians (“CNOM”) were heard at the French National Assembly by the Commission in charge of the revision the bioethics law. 
The President of the Ethics and Deontology Department, Dr. Jean-Marie Faroudja, declared that he is not against allowing ART for single women or lesbian couples. He was quoted in ‘La Croix’ newspaper: “The physician’s role is to ease suffering, both physical and psychological. Since the yearning to have a child is painful, the doctor must be there to listen (…) If people are willing to extend access for ART, we think that it is up to our society to decide”.
Yet the Medical Academy had previously ruled in favor of “the best interests of the child” in a report submitted last July to the ‘CCNE’(French National Consultative Ethics Committee) which stated:
“Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) with a donor deliberately deprives a child from the essential and necessary relationship with 2 adults of different sex.”
The medical profession is completely divided on the subject of performing these techniques which are not medically indicated.
The president of the Catholic Center of French Doctors, Bertrand Galichon, thinks this is “a fundamental turn in the role of caregivers in our society. (…) Are we shifting to a point where doctors will have to meet society’s demands without any reflection whatsoever on their primary mission, which is to cure? “
The same question is raised by a young medical intern who deplores the insufficient training for students on bioethics subjects:
“Can infertility still be considered a medical pathology, when, in order to meet societal demands, doctors are requested to consider lesbian couples and single women, (who are physiologically unable to give birth) eligible to the same “medical treatment” and the same financial help for this treatment as a male-female couple who have been diagnosed as pathologically infertile? Isn’t such infertility a result of a social situation?