Bouvet - LDCS, GPA : the slow gestation of the ethics Committee

In June 2018, at the end of this broad consultation, citizen, what have been the States general of bioethics, the national consultative ethics Committee (CCNE) handed in its report. As stated in its authors : "The summary report has the objective of making state [...] that the CCNE has read and heard during this period through the different procedures in place. This summary report is of a different nature "the Opinion of the CCNE" [...] in which the CCNE will present his insights on what appears to be the priorities for a future legislative action. "Which will result in the revision of the law on bioethics provided for the beginning of 2019. We know now the opinion of the CCNE, made public on 25 September.

Among the nine topics on which we offered to users to express themselves in the framework of the general states, "Procreation and society" arrived well ahead of the positions (29 106 contributions and 317 416 votes). And without a doubt this is on this subject that the opinion of the CCNE was the most awaited. On medically assisted procreation (PMA) for all, we note without surprise that the opinion of the committee is similar to the one already made on June 15, 2017 : the CCNE is in favour of an opening of the LDCS to female couples and to single women. On the surrogacy (GPA), on the other Milanobet hand, the wise express it in their recent opinion, the same rejection clear in June 2017.

What is the opinion of the CCNE on the access to the vitrification of the oocytes, this technique of freezing super-fast that ensures the preservation of their potential for fertilization ? In France, the process was authorized by the act of July 7, 2011, with two indications : the backup female fertility when it is threatened by a medical treatment heavy and the constitution of banks of oocytes for donation to infertile women. To this day, France doesn't allow the vitrification oocyte to shift the child until the time when it is deemed conducive to emotionally and/or professionally. Only the women who have made a donation of oocytes may have more later of some of them for possible in vitro fertilization (IVF) – an update on the condition deemed unacceptable by the national Academy of medicine. In June 2017, CCNE, taking the opposite of the Academy, regarded as hardly tenable to propose the self-conservation of oocytes in all young women for the sole purpose of preventing infertility due to age. His last opinion denotes an evolution : the Committee suggests that now that this technique can be proposed, without, however, encouraging.

in Short, the reproductive, the proposals of the CCNE reflect an evolution without revolution in its positions. And we can expect that this final notice before the law weighs much heavier than the wide range of views expressed during the états généraux.