Manufacture of “father's orphans” , risk of a “commodification of procreation” , “Pandora's box” which leads to surrogacy… Since Monday, a small group of LR deputies have been fighting in vain against the article 1 of the bioethics bill which provides for opening up assisted reproduction to couples of women and single women. After tense exchanges between the right and the majority, the deputies clashed Wednesday on the most controversial measures of the text. Those which divide even within the majority. For the government, the challenge is to get the text voted as close as possible to its version adopted at first reading. Without the measures added to the text in committee and deemed transgressive even on the benches of LREM.
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A first amendment aiming to authorize “Ropa” - a method which allows a woman in a couple to have an embryo conceived with the oocytes of her partner implanted - was rejected by 78 votes against 31. This shared motherhood wants to “make people believe that 'a child can be the child of two women. There is here a desire to oust a biological reality, ” raised Annie Genevard (LR), after having criticized a “ directed donation ” in contradiction with the principle of anonymity of the donation. "We can clearly see the slide towards a surrogacy" , warned Thibault Bazin (LR).
Ethical dilemma
"Our law provides for priority use of the couple's gametes , " retorted the co-rapporteur of the text, Jean-Louis Touraine, in disagreement with the government. A little earlier, Adrien Taquet, the Secretary of State in charge of Children and Families, had in fact considered that the "Ropa" was "in contradiction" with the philosophy of the bill "according to which the parental project is based on love without biology taking precedence ”. Return to calm with the ethical dilemma of post-mortem PMA - renamed Tuesday "post-modern PMA" by Jean Castex in a slip. This delicate subject reshuffles the cards within political groups but imposes respectful exchanges. In the fall, the measure had been rejected by nine votes. The questions it raises seem unfathomable.
»Our dossier - Bioethics bill: understanding everything about the debate that agitates France
Isn't it paradoxical to allow a single woman to access assisted reproduction and to prevent a widow from pursuing a parental project initiated before the bereavement? Why authorize post-mortem marriages and not the transfer of an embryo conceived before the death of the spouse? Does accepting post-mortem ART the same as refusing the limits of death? "The death of one of the members of the couple destroys the parental project as it had been thought" , opposed Frédérique Vidal, the Minister of Research, anxious to put limits to the text. “A widow and a single woman are not the same thing,” said Annie Genevard (LR). Having a child born to a dead man is not without risk. ” Marc Le Fur (LR) retains from this debate “the immense dignity of the embryo” while other elected officials were on the contrary worried about a risk of calling into question the right to abortion. “More than 80% of assisted reproduction procedures end in failure, miscarriage (…). This is an additional trauma” , finally underlined the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran. At the end of the afternoon, all amendments on post-mortem ART were rejected.