by NexDev | March 25, 2016 | News
German statistics for 2015 confirm the downward trend in the number of abortions for the past 15 years.
The German Federal Office of Statistics (Statistische Bundesamt) published, as every year since 1996, the figures relating to the number of abortions in Germany for 2015.
In 2015, the number of women who chose to terminate their pregnancy decreased compared with the previous year. About 99,200 abortions were reported, which is a reduction of 0.5 % compared to 2014. Since the introduction of these statistics in 1996, the highest number of abortions was reached in 2001, with 135,000 reported cases.
Nearly three quarters of women (73%) undergoing abortions were between 18 and 34 years old; 16 % were between 35 and 39 years old, 8 % were over 40; and 3 % younger than 18.
According to current German law, abortion remains forbidden (paragraph 218 of the penal code), and is authorized only in conformance with a list of exceptions (paragraph 218a). The main exception (96% of cases) concerns women who followed the rule of obligation of advice: they consulted and received all the necessary information concerning the act and its alternatives, and were delivered a receipt which they must present for the act to take place. Furthermore, the pregnancy must not exceed 12 weeks. For 4% of them, the abortion was validated for health reasons or criminal reasons (victims of rape).
As a reminder, the abortion rate in France is twice as high as in Germany (15.6 per thousand in France, versus 7 per thousand in Germany). The latest French statistics are on the rise: 229,000 abortions in 2013, for 810,000 births.
Alliance VITA insistently requests implementing a genuine abortion prevention policy in France, whereas the successive measures taken in the past two years have led to irresponsibility on the part of public authorities and society. Informing women whose pregnancy is unforeseen or difficult on access to social aids is essential however to avoid seeing abortion as a fatality. To make up for the absence of information on social aids by the French Ministry of Health, since 2010 VITA has been publishing a guide of social and financial aids for pregnant women: www.jesuisenceinteleguide.org
by NexDev | March 24, 2016 | Bioethics, Press Releases
The 18th edition for the L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science named as Laureates today in Paris two biologists, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, inventors of a genetic engineering technique, called CRISPR-Cas9, which must encourage a maximum ethical vigilance due certain potential applications.
This technique, capable of modifying DNA from all cells, presents promising future perspectives, both in terms of scientific knowledge and therapeutic progress. It represents the first discoveries which bring humanity into the heart of an unprecedented scientific technological, medical, and ethical adventure.
The ethical issues related to the use of CRISPR-Cas9 require worldwide conscience awareness and firm decisions, because the temptation is so strong to use this technique on human embryos or germ cells that some countries (China and Great Britain) have already started to do so. Besides the fact that this kind of research leads to destroying embryos, the results obtained could lead to modifying the human genome to create “custom-made babies” in the future by selecting genes. Applied to gametes, to germ cells or to a formed embryo, the genetic modifications would then be indefinitely transmissible to following generations.
>> Note Expert VITA : CrispR-Cas9 : about genome modification
For Alliance VITA, the biotechnological advances which improve our knowledge and the treatment of certain pathologies represent steps in the right direction, but specific safeguards are needed for the non- instrumentalization of human embryos. Indeed using human embryos as research material leads to creating a category of living human beings sacrificed to be useful for other human beings.
There are more and more red lines not to be crossed concerning genetic heritage, manipulation of gametes and human embryos. The National Ethics Consulting Committee, OPECST (the Parliamentary Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment), the Medical and Scientific Academies have initiated discussions on these fields.
We request for the debate not to remain only in the hands of experts, but that the civilian society also be consulted. There is an urgent necessity to drive « progress » without becoming trapped with individualistic or financial strategies. Progress should be judicious and aim to improve man’s quality of life, without altering his environment, or even his very nature. Will France, as the country of Human Rights, who ratified the Oviedo Convention, be up to the challenge for the issues at stake? France should be at the ethical forefront on the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in the same manner as on other major ethical subjects such as human cloning.
For further information: >> Crispr-Cas9 explained in our 7 minute video
by NexDev | March 23, 2016 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation
In an article published in Le Monde on March 17, 2016, 130 doctors and reproduction biologists explain having transgressed French law and request extending Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), notably to single women and homosexual couples.
Willing to imitate the manifesto “Yes, we have carried out abortions” by doctors in 1973 by co-signing this article with the provocative title (“We, doctors, have helped homosexual couples have a child even if the law forbids it“), these doctors are led by gynecologist, René Frydman, who participated in the birth of the first “test-tube baby” in 1982. Among those signing is also gynecologist, Israël Nisand.
The article formulates several specific demands on current regulations concerning medical aid for reproduction:
1) Developing oocyte donation in France, since the current offer does not meet couples’ needs;
2) Genetically analyzing embryos before being transferred to the uterus by expanding the opportunity for pre-implantation diagnosis (PID) for all in-vitro fertilizations;
3) Allowing women to keep their oocytes without any restrictions;
4) Authorizing sperm donation for single women (“without prejudice of her relational mode weather current or future, gay or heterosexual“).
Besides these four demands, the signatories propose creating a plan to fight against infertility, comparable to national plans against cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. This prevention plan would aim at informing people about the inexorable effects of age and the consequences of certain eating habits, addictions (tobacco, alcohol, drugs) or pollution. In conclusion the signatories call for the respect of “two fundamental ethical principles”: “the non-commercialization of the human body and refusing the risk of using or alienating another person for ones profit“.
Several reactions appeared the very next day in counterpoint to these standpoints, such as that of the biologist Jacques Testart or that of the law professor, Jean-René Binet, to recall some fundamental realities and the ethical principles which establish rules which apply in France. Jean-François Mattei, former Health Minister, analyzes the article with severity: “I do not see any particular courage in their initiative. The signatories transgressed the law in order to demand a legislative evolution. Indeed, they are exposing themselves to being sanctioned by the doctors’ order, and to legal penalties. But that is their responsibility. For my part, even if I respect their opinion, I observe that they do not respect democracy. In 1994 the bioethics Law was adopted by a large majority around the principle of restricting medical aid for reproduction to medical indications. This principle has never been modified since then, even though this Law was revised twice, in 2004 and 2011“.
For Alliance VITA, such a militant article by professionals, who are simultaneously judge and jury, raises questions about the underlying reasons of such pressure. The necessity of preventing infertility and performing studies on causes of infertility constitutes a major medical priority requested by VITA since 1994. However, it is shocking to use this as a secondary measure to justify, in parallel, a headlong rush which does not concern the reality of medical infertility. Especially since half the couples who turn to Assisted Reproductive Technology, which is in itself only a palliative, will have no child in the outcome.
Furthermore, the authors of the article highlight certain ethical principles, while carefully putting others aside. A recent Senate information report underlined, in fact, that extending ART to same-sex couples leads to eliminating the requirement of medical infertility and sexual difference, which would alter “the French conception of ART, and pave the way to the “right to a child” and to surrogacy for convenience”. Already in 2009, a notice from the State Council underlined that the idea was not to align with the less demanding from an ethical viewpoint, in order not to deliberately deprive a child from his father. It is surprising that such specialists do not want to recognize the specific status of gametes – masculine or feminine-, as supplying children’s genetic heritage.
Concerning the request of developing egg donation, including the end of free access and legalizing “financial compensation”, examples abroad prove that such a shift in practice automatically leads to different manners of marketing a woman’s body. The authors do not mention that this type of treatment is not without danger for the health of women donors or that acts connected to artificial reproduction constitute a harsh reality for couples to live with. Furthermore, this technique raises serious ethical questions, especially for those who are confronted with genuine medical infertility whose deepest wish is to procreate naturally and be cured of infertility. Finally, the possibility for every woman to keep her own oocytes is far from achieving unanimity, as confirmed by a recent poll.
As for the embryo genetic analysis prior to uterine transfer, it would constitute an additional pressure towards a eugenic attitude, which is already present in France, specifically regarding the diagnosis of Down’s syndrome.
by NexDev | March 23, 2016 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation
For the first time in France: on Tuesday, March 22nd, the magistrate court in Blois sentenced a mother who sold two of her children to homosexual couples following surrogacy, to one year of suspended imprisonment. The trial was held in late January, 2016; the prosecutor requested one year of prison (with nine months suspended sentence) against the surrogate mother.
Thirty-seven year old, Aurore, is being pursued for having sold two of her children in 2010 and 2012, but especially for the fact of committing fraud against two couples. Indeed, twice, she pretended to a couple who had already paid her the sum of 15,000 € that the child was stillborn, thereby making it possible to sell the child to another couple for the same price.
The grievance retained by the court is not the sale of the child to third parties, which is nonetheless an illegal practice in France, but the fact that Aurore committed fraud against the buyers. It was nevertheless underlined that this woman was in a situation of dire distress, having been raped by her father during her teenage years, and experiencing great financial difficulties.
The Jurists’ Association for Childhood, which filed a civil action complaint in this affair to defend the children’s’ interests, regrets this decision, in a press release: “By retaining fraud as the main grievance against the mother, the justice is only protecting the imaginary rights of children buyers to obtain the purchased item, a child, a small innocent victim, who is completely forgotten in this trial”.
For their part, the 4 couples were fined 2,000 € with suspended imprisonment for “encouraging child abandonment” and not for “traffic of human beings“, which this association finds deeply regrettable. “French penal law doesn’t specifically condemn the purchase of children”. “Those who purchased children were treated as victims”, comments Adeline Le Gouvello, the association’s lawyer. “Committing fraud against those who purchase children would be condemned by law, but children can be sold without difficulty? These children are completely forgotten in this trial, when they are the actual victims“, comments jurist Aude Mirkovic, the association’s spokeswoman.
The immediate question is now to know what is going to become of these children … Should one be returned to his biological parents, that is Aurore and her husband; and the other child to the couple from Toulouse who claims him, as this second affair is at the center of another judicial battle? This is the worst regret confessed by Aurore in the last January audience: “I blame myself, especially for this child“, she declared.
The Jurists Association for Childhood is going to refer to the Committee on the Rights of the Child at the United Nations who recommended several times that France condemn the sale of children. In 2012, the government responded that if the sale of children was not specifically addressed in the penal code, it was punishable all the same. This example proves the opposite. The association will also file the case with the special Rapporteur for the sale of children.
by NexDev | March 18, 2016 | Bioethics, Prenatal diagnosis
In a study published on March 16, in « The Lancet », the Pasteur Institute confirmed the growing risk of microcephaly for the fetus/newborn of a mother infected with the Zika virus during the first trimester of pregnancy.
A mother infected with the Zika virus during her first trimester of pregnancy would have 50 times greater risk of having a baby with microcephaly, a serious malformation of the head. This has been demonstrated for the first time in a study conducted by the Pasteur Institute and Polynesian researchers based on data from women affected by the Zika virus in French Polynesia between September 2013 and July 2015.
Using a mathematical model, the study demonstrates that the risk of microcephaly is approximately 1% for a fetus/newborn when the mother is infected by the Zika virus during the first trimester of pregnancy, compared to a normal risk of 0.02%.
Out of the 8 microcephaly cases identified, 7 occurred in the 4-month period following the Zika virus outbreak, indicating a strong time concurrence (88%) between the epidemic and the occurrence of microcephaly.
Research on the correlation between microcephaly of the fetus and Zika virus infection has been growing these last months.
During the month of February, a team of Brazilian researchers announced having identified the Zika virus in amniotic fluid of two pregnant women (in The Lancet Infectious Diseases).
At the beginning of March, in a study published in the American journal Stem Cell, another team of researchers demonstrated by a laboratory experience that Zika virus could attack and destroy human cerebral cells.
It is in this context that for the first time, the Pasteur Institute’s study reports calculated data for the correlation between Zika virus infection and the occurrence of microcephaly.
According to the Pasteur Institute, the risk of 1% is much less than that observed during other viral infections associated with complication during pregnancy, such as rubella, which has a risk of 38 to 100%. Health authorities are preoccupied with the high proportion of individuals infected during the Zika epidemics. Since the beginning of the year, this recurrent fear of a high number of microcephaly cases has led to strong pressure by international organizations for Brazil to modify its policy on abortion access.
The conclusions of this first study, using a mathematical model, will have to be confirmed by additional research work in the coming months.
Furthermore, the results published by the Pasteur researchers were only carried out on mothers with confirmed contamination. It is still to be examined if non-symptomatic forms of Zika infection also carry a risk for the fetus.
