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Belgium: the balance after 7 years of euthanasia
On 28th May 2008, Belgium decriminalised euthanasia. Seven years later, Pr Raphaël Cohen- Almagor, from the University of Hull, UK, evaluates the application of the law in a study called "Politique et pratique de l’euthanasie en Belgique : observations critiques et...
Contraception and abortion: a same logic
A study by the INPES (National Institute for Health Prevention and Education) published in 2007, and called "Les Français et la contraception" (French People and contraception) highlighted the "French paradox": despite the highest rate of contraception use in Europe,...
The exhibition “Our body, à corps ouvert” banned
At the beginning of April, the associations "Ensemble contre la peine de mort" and "Solidarité Chine" have summoned the organizer of the anatomic exhibition "Our body, à corps ouvert" which, after Lyon and Marseille, took place in Paris since February and presented 17...
The Council of State report on the revision of the law of bioethics
On last 6th May, the Council of State (CS) published its report on the next revision of the law No. 2004-800 of 6th August 2004 related to bioethics. Here are its main recommendations. Authorising the research on embryo Firstly, the CS reminds that the...
The issue of frozen embryos
In its 2007 Statement, the French Biomedicine Agency estimates at 176,523 the number of frozen embryos in France for 49,618 couples (at 31st December 2006)1. At this date, only 52.8% of these embryos were subject to "parental project", or in other words had already a...
Genetic modification of a blood group
French researchers (French Blood Agency, EDS, CNRS, and University of Mediterranée) succeeded, by gene transfer, in modifying genetically a blood group (the Kidd/JK group). To do so, they used cord blood stem cells cultivated in vitro until obtaining erythrocytes....
In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) challenged
More than thirty years after the birth of Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, studies warn against the risks of in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Medical risks The implantation of several embryos generates a high rate of multiple pregnancies with all the...
About umbilical cord and placenta
The preservation and collection of cord and placenta are again encouraged: The French National Academy of Medicine adopted on 26th January 2010 a report on cord mesenchymatous stem cells (MSC) and on 19th February 2010 Marie-Thérèse Hermange submitted to the Senate a...
The figures of early pregnancies
Sexuality of minors The story of Alfie Patten, this young English boy which became father at 13 years old on last 9th February, reopened the debate about the sexuality of minors. In 2007, England and Wales counted 8,196 teenagers under 16 pregnant. The...
The case of Eluana Englaro shakes Italy up: a medical and political struggle
Eluana Englaro, a 38-year-old young Italian woman who fell into a coma after a car accident 17 years ago, died on Monday 9th February, without nutrition and hydration during 3 days, after a long judicial struggle which shook Italy up. At Eluana’s father request made...
About non-heart-beating organ transplantation
Since October 2006, the Agency of Biomedicine experiments, with discretion and in nine hospitals (in Angers, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nancy, Strasbourg and the Saint-Louis, Pitié-Salpêtrière and Bicêtre Hospitals in Paris), the organ transplantation on cardiac...
Medically assisted procreation: the ambivalences of feminism
The Revue française de science politique (French Review of Political Science) of April 2009 published an article by Isabelle Engeli, called "La problématisation de la procréation médicalement assistée en France et en Suisse (the critical scrutiny of...