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MAP: the “order a daddy” app
The London sperm bank has introduced a "new service" - a mobile app known as "Order a Daddy", which "allows women to search for a sperm donor of their choice using their smart phone". Various criteria have been recommended in order to refine the search: eye colour,...
“You cannot put a price on the life of a person with Down syndrome”
NIPS[1]"could reduce the amount of money spent on caring for people with Down syndrome". This is the recent announcement from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Britain which is advising the NHS[2] to carry out a "thorough financial analysis" to...
Surrogacy: “the child’s right does not exist”
For the second time, the Hilton Hotel in Brussels is hosting the Men Having Babies conference"presenting options to same sex couples for recourse to a ‘surrogate mother’ in the United States" (see GPA: Une foire commerciale prévue à Bruxelles _ a commercial exhibition...
The NIPT reimbursed in the Netherlands, a choice of prenatal exclusion
On September 20th, the Dutch Minister for Health announced that the NIPT would be available for all pregnant women from April 1st 2017 and mostly reimbursed by social security [2]. This decision is based on a technical report of the health council, that compared NIPT...
Towards a greater protection of life in Poland
In April 2016, Poland was moved by the failed abortion of a baby with Down syndrome, born alive at 24 weeks of pregnancy. It cried for one hour, abandoned, before dying. The event had a strong impact and both Pro-life and pro-abortion mouvements reacted. They...
Abortion can never become a “fundamental right” or a “freedom”
Can one speak of a right to abortion? It comes as the ultimate question on this “Global day of action for safe and legal abortion”. In order to answer this, Génèthique interrogated Grégor Puppinck who wrote “Droit et prévention de l’avortement en Europe[1] (law and...
Belgium: euthanasia for a minor
"A minor has been given euthanasia in Belgium". The Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia published the information on Saturday. The doctor "who carried out the procedure filed his/her statement in the past week and a report will soon be...
IUD: First case in Norway regarding the right to conscientious objection
In Norway, Doctor Jachimowicz has been struck off for refusing to implant an IUD on the grounds of conscientious objection. This summer she took legal action to contest the decision. This is the first case of its kind in Norway. In December 2015, Doctor...
Belgium: “End-of-life legislative frenzy”
Following on from Belgium's"strange record" when it comes to euthanasia (see Belgique : un mineur euthanasié - Belgium: a minor is given euthanasia), Belgian Senator, Alain Destexhe, shares his analysis: "The legislative frenzy in social terms does not seem to have...
MAP: Pre-implantation genetic screening “is of no interest”
PGS or Preimplantation Genetic Screening is an embryo selection technique used in in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) protocols[1]. The aim is "to eliminate embryos with chromosome abnormalities in order to implant only ‘normal’ embryos" and improve IVF success rates....
iPS cells: successful allograft in monkeys
Cell therapy based on iPS (induced Pluripotent Stem cell) cells is advancing. The team at the Developmental Biology Centre, Riken Institute, led by ophthalmologist, Masayo Takahashi, "has just shown that iPS cells produced from monkey cells can be transplanted into...
Genetic modification to human embryos: work begins in Sweden
As announced in April, Swedish scientist, Fredrik Lanner from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm has started work on genetically modifying human embryos using CRISPR without considering the ethical and safety questions often raised by such research. He wants...