Search
At 60 years old, a mother has just been granted the right to use her deceased daughter’s oocytes
After a 5-year judicial battle, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has just lost its trial against a 60-year-old woman, who wished to use the frozen oocytes of her daughter who died of cancer in 2011 Hoping to become a mother by IVF, the...
Stem cells: a market that escapes the American Drug Agency
A study published on Thursday in the Cell Stem Cell journal revealed that almost “570 clinics in the United States are offering stem cell treatments that have not been authorised by the US Federal Drug Agency, the FDA”, and that “these treatments can prove risky”....
Condemnation of a Belgian residential home: the “totalitarianism of euthanasia”
Questioned about her condemnation of a Belgian residential home for “refusing euthanasia” (see Euthanasia imposed on health centres in Belgium and Canada), Carine Brochier from the European Institute of Bioethics had this to say, “the legal conditions were not met” in...
Indiana: blocks law banning abortions on babies with Down syndrome
After North Dakota, Indiana banned abortion because of a genetic deformity such as Down syndrome in March (see Indiana is the second US state to ban abortion in relation to Down syndrome). A few days later, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the...
Euthanasia imposed on health centres in Belgium and Canada
On Wednesday, the Louvain Civil Court in Belgium condemned the management of the Huiez Sint-Augustinus residential home in Diest “for its rejection of euthanasia in August 2011”. The management board was ordered to pay “damages” totalling €6,000 to the family of...
Mexican Supreme Court decision: abortion will not be decriminalised
On Wednesday, 29 June, the Mexican Supreme Court rejected a draft law to decriminalise abortion. Members of this institution’s upper house rejected, by three votes to one, an initiative seeking to “declare as unconstitutional two articles in the penal code...
Czech Republic: The Government rejects a draft bill in favour of euthanasia
On 22 June 2016 in Prague, the Czech Government voted against a draft bill presented by six MPs and aimed at allowing euthanasia under strict conditions. The draft bill sought to grant euthanasia to terminally ill patients who had requested it. The bill also...
United States: the Supreme Court rejects the law limiting access to abortion in two other States
On Tuesday, 28 June 2016, the day after its decision to reject a Texan law limiting abortion, the United States Supreme Court also refused to consider restrictions taken by the States of Mississippi and Wisconsin (see United States: the Supreme Court rejects Texan law...
Chromosome abnormality, who gets to judge of the “right to be born”?
A recent study [1]has revealed that multidisciplinary antenatal diagnosis centres (PDADC) have a primordial role to play concerning the follow up of pregnancies related to the diagnosis of the syndromes 47, XXX or 47, XYY. The PDADC has been developed since...
Lithuania adopts a framework for MAP
On Tuesday, the Lithuanian Parliament adopted a legal framework for in-vitro fertilisation after “years of passionate debate”. To date, in-vitro fertilisation has only been carried out in private establishments for an “average cost of approximately €2,000” and was not...
In Canada, an initial request to extend the criteria for medically assisted dying
In Canada, law C-14, which came into force on 17 June 2016, (seeMedically assisted dying: Canada - law C-14 came into force on Friday, “Murder legalised in Canada”) “provides the framework for medically assisted dying” for consenting adults “whose death is reasonably...
United States: the Supreme Court rejects Texan law limiting abortion
On Monday, 27 June, the American Supreme Court rejected a Texan law restricting abortion. This decision was adopted by a majority decision with five judges in favour and three against. Anthony Kennedy, considered to be a “moderate conservative”, tipped the...