![[Press Release] Numerical obstruction to Abortion: VITA appeals the administrative court](https://www.alliancevita.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/C4xwAEJWIAAo7NB.jpg)
by NexDev | February 17, 2017 | Press Releases
While the French National Assembly has just adopted a law for extending the scope of numerical obstruction to abortion, Alliance VITA has filed suit in Paris against the Health Minister for the inexact or biased information published on the government’s official abortion website.
Particularly at issue is a video entitled « Are there any psychological consequences after abortion? » in which a gynecologist asserts that “there are no long-term psychological side-effects for abortions”. This information goes against the 2010 report from the General Inspection of Social Affairs (IGAS), which emphasizes the lack of objective evaluation on post-abortion psychological consequences which “often remain an emotionally challenging event”.
This denial of any long-term post-abortion consequences is misleading for women, not only when they hesitate, but when they do experience post-abortion suffering long after the event. In their suit, Alliance VITA also condemns certain inexact information in the abortion guide dated 2014, whereas Public Health Code article L.2212-3 states that it must be updated annually.
During the parliamentary debates there were several criticisms that the bill would represent a serious attack on freedom of speech, and create confusion in penal law, therefore the Constitutional Council will undoubtedly be called upon to give a verdict on the final text.
Caroline Roux, Director for the Crisis Center Listening Service states:
“It is noteworthy that one of the latest government laws severely infringes on freedom of speech and women’s rights to be correctly informed on abortion. It’s time to discard misconceptions and find new solutions. Abortion is often a terrible tragedy imposed on women faced with an unplanned pregnancy. In order to genuinely promote equality between sexes, women should be helped to avoid abortion, an act that is never undertaken lightly. It is a critical abnegation and an unbelievable political scandal that abortion prevention was never addressed during the latest debates by French Health Minister, Laurence Rossignol.”
Tugdual Derville, Alliance VITA’s general delegate declares:
“France’s minister for women’s rights, Laurence Rossignol, explained to the Senate that abortion does not interrupt a life. She nevertheless requested 2 years of prison for anyone publishing false information on abortion!” In the end, the truth is being censured and women are the first victims of this official denial. Alliance VITA refuses to be intimidated by these threats and will continue its service in favor of truthful information and its campaign for abortion prevention. It’s a question of social justice and humanity”
The IFOP opinion poll results on the French and Abortion published in September 2016 found that 72% think society should help women more in order to avoid having recourse to abortion and 89% believe that an abortion leaves painful psychological marks.
by NexDev | February 16, 2017 | News
In the Netherlands at least 350 doctors have already signed a petition refusing euthanasia for persons with advanced dementia.
The petition reads as follows: “Give mortal injections to patients with advanced dementia solely based on advance declarations? To individuals who cannot confirm whether or not they want to die? No, we do refuse. Our moral reluctance to end the life of a defenseless human being is too strong.”
In 2002, the Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia. The country’s law authorizes ending lives of individuals with dementia as long as the patients fulfill two conditions: establish a written advance directive prior to dementia but he still had to express the desire for death himself. But this is no longer required. In December 2015, the Dutch government relaxed the conditions with a joint statement from the Ministers of Public Health and Security and Justice changed the euthanasia guideline to state that “these patients can be helped to die, even if they are no longer capable of expressing their will” if they made a written declaration with this wish while they were still lucid.
In 2015 euthanasia accounted for 5516 deaths in the Netherlands almost 4% of all deaths nationwide, including 109 dementia cases. Dementia, being considered as “unbearable psychological suffering” with no prospect of improvement, can be included within the context of the law.
Borderline cases are currently on the rise. Among others, in May 2016 a young lady was allowed to choose euthanasia after suffering repeated sexual abuse. In July 2016 a 41-year old man with alcoholism requested euthanasia and in another case a woman underwent euthanasia against her will.
The Dutch government recently introduced a draft law to authorize assisted suicide for elderly people, even for those who are perfectly healthy. People requesting euthanasia can invoke the “sense of having lived a full or complete life” or because they are tired of living.
Heading to an ethical awakening for doctors?
This petition marks the first time that part of the medical community has taken a stand to limit the euthanasia boundaries in the Netherlands. These doctors hope their action will restart a nationwide discussion on the subject.
by NexDev | February 13, 2017 | Bioethics, News
The draft law for widening the charges for numerical obstruction to abortion is scheduled to be examined again by the French Senate on Tuesday, February 14. On February 8, during the second reading, the text was not adopted by the Senate Social Affairs Committee, following joint committee’s failure to reach an agreement. Since the French Joint Parliamentary Committee had failed to reach an agreement, this highly controversial legislation was sent to the National Assembly, where it is likely to be rejected during the public session.
A final reading is scheduled for Thursday, February 16, since the MP’s have the final word in case of disagreement.
>> For Info : retrospective study on the French National Assembly debates on Numerical Obstruction to Abortion.
During the parliamentary debates there were several criticisms that the bill would represent a serious attack on freedom of speech, and create confusion in penal law, therefore the Constitutional Council will undoubtedly be called upon to edit the final text for the deputies’ vote.
Caroline Roux : Alliance VITA’s Assistant General Delegate and Coordinator for the Listening Service Crisis Center
« At this stage the result is an alarming bill against the freedom of expression and women’s’ rights to be informed. The impartiality of information is at stake, as well as the preventive measures on pressure to abort, which are currently both denied and ignored. Alliance VITA will now file suit to have inexact or biased information deleted from the government’s web site.
by NexDev | February 10, 2017 | News
On Wednesday February 7, the administrative court in Marseilles issued a court order to continue health care for one-year old baby Marwa, who had been put in an induced coma at the Timone hospital.
After an aggressive enterovirus attacked her nervous system, Marwa was first taken to Lenval hospital in Nice before being transported by emergency helicopter to Timone hospital in Marseilles on September 25, 2016.
Considering the baby’s neurological lesions to be irremediable, the doctors made a collective and unanimous decision on November 4, 2016 to stop her treatment and switch off the life-supporting respirator. The parents disagreed and filed suit at the Marseilles administrative court on November 9. On November 15, the court suspended the doctor’s decision (Marseilles Hospital’s Public Assistance) and ordered for appropriate care to be reinitiated, as well as medical consultations by 2 neurologists, and for a neuro-pediatrician to reevaluate her condition after a 2-month time lapse.
Following the expert evaluation, the administrative court issued a new decision on February 7: whereby the decision to stop treatment was “premature because it had been taken too soon to unequivocally ascertain the child’s strength and that the therapy in progress was ineffective”. The expert report qualified the prognosis as « exceptionally poor” although noting that “some signs of improvement had been observed”.
The court did not take into account Barrister Olivier Grimaldi’s arguments, the hospital’s lawyer, who described continuing care as a risk of “coercive medical excesses”. Rather the opposite, the court judged that « the fact that an individual is in an irreversible condition of losing autonomy, requiring a respirator or artificial feeding does not characterize, in and of itself, that pursuing treatment is unjustified under the label of therapeutic obstinacy.”
Following the verdict, the Marseilles Hospital’s Public Assistance lawyers published a press release Thursday February 9, announcing they would file an appeal with the State Council objecting the continuation of Marwa’s care.
The parents launched a petition in November which already has over 170,000 signatures on the website www.change.org requesting their daughter be given « a chance to live ».
Alliance VITA’s position :
The legal battle surrounding Marwa’s case constitutes a new tragedy for an especially complex medical issue, since the doctor and the family have different positions on whether or not therapy is promising. The administrative judge in Marseilles, (using language that recall the 2014 debates in the Vincent Lambert case) underlines an important fact: A comatose individual needing a respirator or artificial feeding does not necessarily represent excessive medical obstinacy that should be discontinued. Diagnosing someone as “being kept alive artificially” and thus authorizing the doctor to “unplug” the patient, ensuring imminent death, must be evaluated cautiously on a case-by-case basis and only as a last resort.
by NexDev | February 6, 2017 | Prenatal diagnosis
Deputy Jean-Yves Le Déaut filed a new draft bill on November 16, 2016 aimed at extending indications for preimplantation diagnosis.
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) consists in performing in-vitro genetic analysis on embryos, by withdrawing several individual cells in order to detect chromosomal abnormalities and if indicated, choose not to perform in utero embryo transfer, and discard the embryo.
Currently the law only authorizes using PGD in the following exceptional cases:
- The couple has an increased risk of giving birth to a child with a serious genetic disease considered to be incurable at diagnosis. The screening can only be performed for cases when one of the parents or an immediate ascendant has a serious disabling disease, which was found belatedly and was life-threatening, in order to elucidate the anomaly or anomalies for the mentioned illness.
- Both members of the couple must sign their written consent for performing the diagnosis.
The only objective for diagnosis is for screening that specific disease, as well as different manners to prevent or treat the disease.
This draft law would thus introduce a break with the previous legislation, extending it for the research of other diseases.
It would introduce the use of preimplantation diagnosis for «screening risks of severe disease during embryonic development” with the use of “molecular genetic testing” in order to avoid a medical interruption of pregnancy later on”.
However, PGD allows medically-assisted in-vitro fertilized embryos to be screened prior to transfer. For parliamentarians, the issue is not a question of principle, but one of time.
In their explanatory statement, the MP’s base this on the fact that “Today in society the desire to have children is manifested much later in life” therefore “we believe it is essential for us to authorize genetic testing of embryos before uterine transfer for cases of increased risk of embryonic abnormalities.”
The authors of draft bill specify that “These arguments lean towards relaxing certain regulatory guidelines for sexual reproduction as requested by several doctors – reproduction biologists”, thus referring to an activist and deceptive article, headed by gynecologist René Frydman. This article formulates several specific demands on current regulations concerning medical aid for reproduction: developing oocyte donation in France, genetically analyzing embryos before being transferred to the uterus by expanding the opportunity for preimplantation diagnosis for all in-vitro fertilizations; allowing women to keep their oocytes without any restrictions; authorizing unrestricted sperm donation for single women whether single or homosexual…
The authors of the draft bill state that even if Article 47 of the 2011 Bioethics Law has to be reexamined by Parliament prior to the 2018 Law, according to the evaluation of its application in 2017 by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, of which Mr. LE Déhaut is currently president, and in keeping with the General Assembly “this bill may be discussed prior to the deadlines as long as the practice is already proposed to all pregnant women before the end of the first trimester.”
Alliance VITA’s viewpoint:
This practice contributes to additional pressure for eugenics. Screening all human embryos conceived by IVF insinuates that one has to have the right genetic passport before being allowed to live.
