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A London hospital wants to balance its budget by selling sperm
In the United Kingdom, a National Health Service (NHS) hospital in London wants to balance its budget by selling sperm. Although it is a non-profit-making hospital, it is allowed to do this. Embryologist, Erica Foster, from the Whittington Hospital...
In India, a doctor fights against female foeticide by offering to deliver baby girls free of charge
In India, the cultural preference for boys has led to gender selective abortions. Many little girls are never born. Scientists estimate that up to 12 million girls have been aborted in India over the last 30 years. Although the use of ultrasound scans for...
Creation of blood cells from stem cells – a credible alternative to blood donation?
Scientists at Bristol University in the United Kingdom have published "promising" results in the Nature Communications journal on the laboratory production of red blood cells. Earlier research was hampered by an ineffective protocol, which produced only a small...
Russia: heading towards a surrogacy ban?
Russian senator, Anton Belyakov, has proposed a ban on surrogacy in Russia. According to him, current legislation barely protects surrogate mothers and the process could even prove detrimental to any children born through surrogacy. He regrets the fact that Russia has...
Mum, Dad & Kids: a European citizens’ incentive to confront European interference in social issues
The European Union is carrying out an "enormous task every day in Brussels and its impact is extremely important for our own legislation". This work focuses essentially on "all anthropological and social issues" even though these are outside the European remit....
“Can you see something flicking on the screen? It’s your baby’s heart beat. Now, either you keep it or… “
Laetitia was only 18 years of age when she discovered quite by chance that she was pregnant. The gynaecologist who performed an emergency ultrasound simply said: "Can you see something flashing on the screen? It's your baby's heart beat. Now, either you keep it or you...
Abortion: Ireland is pressed by Europe to change its legislation
Following his visit to Ireland at the end of 2016, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, published a report on 9 March in which he "immediately requested the Irish authorities to adopt legislation to lift all of the obstacles...
Five simulated organs on a chip – a model of the female reproductive system
A team at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Northwestern University (Chicago) has developed "a 3D culture device of living cells harvested from several organs in the female reproductive system". This technologyknown as EVATAR "resembles a small cube...
The first Japanese patient receives donor iPS cells
On 28 March, a sixty year-old Japanese man with age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) received an injection of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), obtained from the skin cells of an anonymous donor. This was the first procedure of its kind as, up until this point,...
American Senate votes to terminate public financing of Family Planning
On Thursday, after a close vote, "and a rare tie-breaking vote from Vice-President, Mike Pence, empowered to do so as President of the Senate", the American Senate repealed an Obamacare directive "aimed at protecting the public financing of Family Planning...
Health care professionals’ conscience clause undermined by the European Parliament
On 14 March 2017, the European Parliament adopted the Ernest Urtasun report which focuses on "equality between men and women within the European Union". This document includes "an obvious obstacle to conscientious objection"in paragraph 47. Noting the "difficulties in...
The Dutch Medical Federation opposes extension of assisted suicide
The Dutch Medical Federation representing 59,000 practitioners and students has branded as "undesirable" the draft law aimed at authorising assisted suicide for elderly people who "feel that their lives are ‘over’ even if they are not ill". It believes that...