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The self-preservation of eggs is under debate in the Netherlands
Dutch Health Minister, Edith Schippers, is debating whether to allow women of 50 who wish to have recourse to MAP (medically assisted pregnancy) access “to their eggs frozen 15 years earlier”. MAP is currently authorised up to the age of 45 in this country. The...
British scientists authorised the genetic handling of embryos
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has just authorised scientists at the Francis Crick Institute in London to genetically modify human embryos using the CRISPR Cas9 technique. Scientists submitted their request in September...
Family Day: thousands of Italians demonstrate against the draft “civil union” bill
On the occasion of the opening of the parliamentary debate on the creation of a “civil union” in Italy, hundreds of thousands of Italians demonstrated on Saturday in Rome under the slogan, “Stop destroying family life”. This demonstration was organised by the “Defend...
Can iPS cure blindness?
A team of scientists at Iowa University working in conjunction with scientists at Columbia University Medical Centre have succeeded in correcting a genetic mutation causing blindness, in patients’stem cells. Their results were published on 27 January in the Scientific...
Medical assistance to die: extension to minors is under debate in Canada
The Ottawa Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying was heard by MPs on Tuesday evening. This group published its report in December.Their “worrying” perspective is that “medically assisted dying should not only be offered to...
Europe: the conflict of interest regarding surrogacy issues is not upheld against Petra De Sutter
The Council of Europe Social Affairs Committee voted yesterday following the debate fuelled by Members of the European Parliament who challenged the role of rapporteur granted to Belgian MP, De Sutter, a transsexual gynaecologist practising surrogacy, further to the...
The Zika epidemic – a public health risk issue
“For half a century,” the Zika virus “was believed to be harmless”. However, in recent weeks this has become a public health problem because the virus is “believed to trigger incurable congenital deformities when it infects pregnant women (microcephaly with...
In Belgium, euthanasia legislation is still hotly debated
In 2002, Belgium adopted a legal framework to “develop ‘palliative care for all’, whilst decriminalising euthanasia under specific rigorous conditions”. Nowadays, doctors are taught that euthanasia is a “complimentary act to palliative care in the most...
Do the Chinese have adequate regulations governing ethics?
Chinese research announcements often trigger heated debates as evidenced with the recent reports by Xu Xiaochun, scientist and Chinese entrepreneur, who wants to build “the world’s biggest commercial animal cloning centre”, and the Sun Ya Tsen University Laboratory in...
Texas: Journalists censured following the circulation of American Family Planning videos
David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt from the Center for Medical Progress, were indicted on Monday in a jury trial [1] in Texas “for reporting on the alleged sale of foetal tissues by the Family Planning Association”.The jury accused both journalists “of having...
Portugal: the President vetoes adoption by homosexual couples
On Monday, Portuguese President, Anibal Cavaco Silva[1], vetoed a law authorising adoption by homosexual couples. Parliament voted on this law in December with a left majority. The Socialist Party announced “that it wished to confirm the law by an absolute...
Quebec authorises recourse to “phantom surrogate mothers”
On 14 January, the Quebec Court of Appeal made a “major” judgment authorising “a homosexual couple to adopt the child born to a surrogate mother”. In 2014, the two men asked a female friend to carry the child conceived by IVF. At the request of the surrogate mother,...