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La trisomie est une tragédie grecque – Jean-Marie Le Méné
While we celebrate this year the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the origin of Down Syndrome by Jerôme Lejeune 2, Jean-Marie Le Méné, chairman of Jérôme Lejeune foundation 3, published a book in which he dismantles the workings of the organisation of French...
Instruction Dignitas personae, on some bioethical questions
While the Bishop’s Conference of France has just published "Bioéthique, propos pour un dialogue", with a view to the revision of the Bioethics law, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in Vatican, in December 2008, published a new instruction, very...
Pre-implantation diagnosis and predispositions
On last 9th January, the first British baby selected by pre-implantation diagnosis (PID) for breast cancer predisposition was born. Its mother, 27 years old, decided to resort to PID so that her child does not carry BRCA1 gene which could have increased by 50% to 80%...
Jane Roe’s case, story of a manipulation
An outstanding book, "L’affaire Jane Roe, histoire d’une manipulation" 1, tells the story of how a women who was, in spite of herself, at the origin of the abortion in USA, became one of the most famous representative of pro-life. The Roe vs. Wade judgment...
Euthanasia in Luxembourg
On 2nd December 2008, the Grand-Duke of Luxembourg announced that he will not promulgate law legalising euthanasia. Legislative process Introduced in 2001, this bill aiming at decriminalising euthanasia in Luxembourg was adopted, a first time, by the...
The OPECST report on the law of bioethics
The report of the Parliamentary Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment (OPECST) written by the deputies Jean-Sébastien Vialatte (UMP) and Alain Claeys (PS) is aimed to make the Members of Parliament think about the challenges of the revision of the law of...
CCNE: questioning about Convention of bioethics
Alors que le débat sur la fin de vie est relancé en France, Mgr Jacques Suaudeau, membre de l’Académie pontificale pour la Vie, a accordé à Zenit un long entretien sur l’euthanasie. Définition de l’euthanasie Forgé au XVIIème siècle par Francis Bacon, le...
Leonetti report: Assessment of the law on patient rights and end of life
In charge of assessing the law of 22nd April on end of life and of making proposals, the mission entrusted to Jean Leonetti, UMP deputy, and three of his colleagues (the socialist Gaëtan Gorce, the communist Michel Vaxès and the centrist Olivier Jardé) delivered its...
Hermange’s Report – Therapeutic potential of cord blood cells
In a report published on 4th November 2008 1, Marie-Thérèse Hermane (UMP senator) denounced, in the name of the Senate commission on Social Affairs, the French delay concerning the storage of cord blood (see Letter Gènéthique No 91). 20 years after the first global...
Proposals of the Biomedicine Agency for the revision of the law of bioethics
In the perspective of the revision of the law of bioethics and of the Convention foreseen in 2009, the Minister for Health asked the Biomedicine Agency to draw up an inventory of the application of the law of 6th August 2004. In this report, the Agency made proposals...
The Agency of Biomedicine incites research on embryonic cells
State of the researches The 2007 report from the Agency of Biomedicine reminds that French teams have started research on human embryos from 2005, year of the first authorisations. At the end of the year 2007, 27 teams held an authorisation to research on...
2007 results of human genetics and procreation activities
The 2007 annual report of the Agency of Biomedicine has just been issued and presents the conditions of the medically assisted procreation, on the eve of the revision of the bioethics law, in 2009. In 2006, the different techniques of medically assisted procreation...