by NexDev | September 28, 2015 | End of life, Euthanasia and Suicide, Laws, surveys, protagonists, News
On September 18, 2015 [in France], the National Union of Associations of Families of sufferers of Cranial Trauma or cerebral lesions1 (UNAFTC) published an open letter to Jean Leonetti which they sent to all house representatives.
This letter expresses concerns about the proposition of MP’s Claeys and Leonetti “which creates new rights for the ill at the end of life”. This proposition returns soon for second reading before the National Assembly: first of all with the Commission for social affairs on September 30, then in a public sitting on October 5-6, 2015. This text, adopted in the first reading by the National Assembly, and subsequently rejected by the Senate, could authorise medical teams, under certain conditions, to end the life of persons in a relational state of minimal consciousness (pauci-relational) 2.
It is this “flaw” in the text, “illustrated perfectly by the Lambert affair”, that worries Emeric Guillermou, the UNAFTC president.
On September 23, the UNAFCT also launched a petition, titled “NO to imposed death”, demanding that family members or loved ones caring for someone who is pauci-relational should be fully involved in making decisions. It stated:
“Death by stopping feeding and hydration cannot be imposed on the family of the person incapable of expressing his/her own wish. (…) The Lambert Affair shows us that the current law permits a doctor to take this initiative. We think that such a decision affects the very meaning of life, and is not strictly medical; whereas the current law confers on him the power to decide this and even to impose it. We demand that the recommendation of the National Consultative Committee on Ethics (CCNE) be applied, in its note on the Lambert affair to the State Council: the CCNE considers it desirable to set up a real process of deliberation and of collective decision, allowing to bring out, on a case by case analysis, with a full knowledge of the uncertainty, the best possible answer in the radical uniqueness of each situation”.
To sign the petition on line: click here
For further reading:
– Article by Jean-Yves Nau on non-responding persons or persons in pauci-relational state: the 1500 Vincent Lamberts that no-one talks about;
– Website of the UNAFTC: http://www.traumacranien.org
– Facebook page of the UNAFTC
– State of needs and propositions of the UNAFTC for the accompaniment of persons suffering from cranial trauma and their families, June 2010 : UNAFTC Government Plan
Translator’s notes:
1 “National Association of Families of Cranial Trauma or cerebral lesion sufferers” would sound good in Britain, but in France ‘Association’ has a very precise meaning, hence need for “union of associations” in France.
state of minimal consciousness 2 – sometimes called, “pauci-relational state”
by NexDev | September 26, 2015 | News
For the past two months there has been an increasing controversy in the United States concerning the dealings by the American branch of the International Federation of Planned Parenthood, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, after the release of online videos that show that this association delivers aborted fetal body parts to clinics for medical research in exchange for financial compensation.
Individuals from the Center for Medical Progress who purport to be, on their internet site, journalists working on medical ethics, posed as buyers for aborted fetal body parts. By hidden camera, they filmed in 2014 American directors of Planned Parenthood explaining the exchange of aborted fetal body parts for money. Although the practice is authorized in the United States under certain conditions, its marketing is not allowed.
The words used on the video by the doctor were found to be horrific by the American public. “We have become very good at extracting hearts, lungs, and livers, because we know, and we try not to crush those parts of the body” according to one of the videos filming Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s Medical Services Director.
The American Federation of Planned Parenthood manages 700 clinics that practice abortions, including late-term abortions, which are authorized by American law. Although partially supported by private funding the association also receives public funding for its’ information campaigns on contraception and family planning, which represent 40 % of its budget.
In reaction to the videos, the Republican majority at the House of Representatives voted a law on September 18th, demanding a one-year freeze on public funding for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, until the issue has been clarified. An additional bill was voted for approving penal sanctions for doctors who do not intervene to save the life of an infant born alive who survived an abortion.
Even if the bill will probably not be confirmed by the Democratic-majority Senate, the pressure still remains high as long as more concrete evidence has not been shown. The directors of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America defend their position of making a profit and affirm that they sell aborted fetus body parts at “cost price”.
by NexDev | September 25, 2015 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation
The young start-up from Lyon, Kallistem, announced last Thursday September 17, 2015 that they had applied for a patent with their partners: the CNRS, the Lyonnaise ENS, the INRA and the Claude Barnard University of Lyons-1.
This patent is dealing with Aristem, which combines two fields of expertise: those of cell culture and of bio-substances.
According to its inventors, this technique would now allow test-tube spermatogenesis, that is, the production of functional, mature spermatozoa [sperm cells] from the immature cells, called spermatogonia, which nestle in the seminiferous tubules in the testicles. Human spermatogenesis takes 72 days and consists of a physiological process that is complex. It begins with immature cells that have [the full genetic complement, like those of the rest of the body, that is] 46 chromosomes. These undergo three broad stages (mitosis, meiosis and spermatogenesis) ending up with functional spermatozoa that contain [only a single genetic complement,] 23 chromosomes, ready for the fertilisation of an ovum, also containing 23 chromosomes. This process gives rise to the first embryonic cell, having [a new kind of full genetic complement,] 46 chromosomes, which is the essence of a new human being.
Thus far biomaterials have been refined, allowing a stable and efficacious confinement of cultures of seminiferous tubules, imitating that of testicular tissues, thus creating a real bioreactor in which complete spermatogenesis can take place.
The technique has been tested on tissues from rats, monkeys and even man. Researchers have worked using testicular biopsies of transsexuals. “As young pre-puberty boys only have spermatogonies, the same applies for men who want to become women, after undergoing hormone treatment that stops their spermatogenesis; so also, men who are infertile because of a blockage in spermatogenesis only have spermatogonies. In this last situation, after 72 days, we have been able to obtain spermatozoa”, indicates researcher Marie-Hélène Perrard.
Kallistem present their process as an answer to a man’s infertility caused by non-obstructive azoospermia, whose testicules do not produce sperm cells despite the presence of the precursor cells. It could also benefit small boys treated for cancer, from whom testicular tissue has been taken before it has been subject to chemo- or radiotherapy, rich as it is in the immature germinal cells which normally produce sperm cells from adolescence.
According to estimations by the start-up company from Lyon, this treatment for male infertility could represent a potential market over 2.3 billion €uros, with more than 50,000 new patients per year.
.The technique raises ethical questions. For Jean Yves Nau [i], it “smacks of a publicity drive, which the CNRS (why?) fully supports. Should this work one day be endorsed by the specialist community, it would still encounter considerable methodical and ethical difficulties to validate such a process for animals and then for man. French law forbids the creation of human embryos for research purposes. Shall we, in Lyon, dare to pass directly to the stage of human reproduction using artificial sperm?”
Equally, with regard to the predicted profits, there is also the likelihood that these techniques would hinder genuine research for preventing male infertility.
It is also useful to question the causes of the explosion of male infertility in our countries, and the effective absence of any prevention policies.
by NexDev | September 25, 2015 | End of life, News
Last August 27, Jesús Aparicio, a young 29 year old Spaniard, has emerged from a coma after almost 11 years, as if he had just gone to sleep the night before, remembering the exact circumstances of his car accident, and even the face of the driver who had hit him!
On December 12, 2004, the young Jesús, native of Seville, had a serious car accident. The car he was in, with 3 friends ran into another car and went off the road. Whereas the 3 others came out practically unscathed, the young man received a head injury and immediately fell into a coma.
From that moment onward, his family gathered around him and took care of him day and night, his mother continuing to hope that he would wake up one day. And, that is what happened last August 27, when the young man called for his mother. He is gradually recovering the ability to speak, as well as the psychomotor skills. He has a difficult time to imagine that he has spent over ten years of his life bedridden… “It was a terrible ordeal for all of us, but we were never discouraged, and we always hoped that this day would arrive”, recounted his mother, Rosario.
This incident reminds us that some people regularly « awaken » following different time periods of being comatose. Notably in the story of Angèle Lieby whose book “A tear saved me” recounts her “awakening”. Other similar stories have recently appeared.
by NexDev | September 25, 2015 | Bioethics, News
The Health bill currently being debated in the Senate contains measures with serious ethical implications, especially those which further trivialize abortion, or those which facilitate research on embryos, and organ removals. The most emblematic provision is the elimination of the one-week delay period between two medical appointments before having an abortion.
Most of these measures were introduced by amendments during the discussion at the National Assembly, in March-April 2015, and thus without studying the impact or having a real public debate.
The Senate Commission for Social Affairs carried out in July an in-depth work to balance out and simplify the text, particularly by eliminating those controversial initiatives on abortion, embryo research and organ donation, and by proposing that these subjects be discussed in a future “bioethics law”.
The senators began public sessions from September 13 th-18th to examine the bill’s articles, based on the text voted by the Commission. They reintroduced two of the most important measures concerning abortion, namely the elimination of the one week delay for abortion (article 17 bis) and ability given to heath centers to practice surgical abortions (article 16 bis).
From September 28th to October 1st, the senators will pursue their work. In particular, they will be examining three other measures, all aiming at even more facilitating access to abortion: enabling midwives to practice medication abortions (article 31), the consolidation of the right to information on abortion methods, and the creation of regional action plans concerning abortions (article 38). Also to follow, the complicated question allowing research on gametes and transferable embryos (article 37) as well as the modification of the procedure for organ removal (article 46 ter).
The final vote is scheduled for next Tuesday, October the 6th.
