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On 11 April 2024, the European Parliament voted (336 in favour, 163 against and 39 abstentions) for a resolution to amend Article 3 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to include the right to abortion. Although European Parliament resolutions are not binding, they nevertheless express the official position of the legislative body if a majority of MEPs vote in favour of them. As for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, it is binding on the Member States, but only when the...

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On 23 April 2024, the European Parliament voted to amend the Directive on human trafficking to include surrogate motherhood among the acts of human trafficking that Member States are obliged to punish. Voted 563 in favour, 7 against and 17 abstentions, the text is still subject to approval by the ministers of the Member States who are part of the Council of the European Union. Given the diversity of European legislation in this area, the question arises as to what impact this will have on...

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After more than 150 years, a new Penal Code is launched, with articles 109 to 111 making incitement to suicide a criminal offence. The new article 109 defines this offence as "the deliberate accomplishment of an act likely to cause a person to commit suicide. Incitement to suicide is punishable only if it results in the victim committing suicide or attempting to do so". Incitement can be both psychological (convincing a person that suicide is the solution to their problems) and...

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Pregnancy

In the early days of 2024, the prestigious scientific journal American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology published the results of a study to determine the feasibility of cryopreserving ovarian tissue in order to delay menopause. "For the first time in the history of medicine, we have the ability to potentially delay or eliminate menopause", said Dr Kutluk Oktay, author of the study and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Reproduction and Fertility Preservation at the Yale School of...

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The organisation of this conference at the beginning of April 2024 came just a few days before a new meeting of the working group of the International Hague Conference (from 8 to 12 April), whose mandate includes considering the drafting of an international convention on the transnational recognition of filiation resulting from surrogate motherhood. In an open letter published on X, the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogacy took the opportunity to reiterate the need to put an...

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In 2021-2022, there were more than 5,000 referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) run by Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust (compared with 250 in 2011-2012). In response to this increase in cases, the NHS has asked Dr Hilary Cass, former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to conduct an independent review of gender services for minors. In 2022, an interim report from this study warned of the dangers of systematically prescribing puberty...

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Assisted reproduction

Published on 29 March 2024 in the journal Nature, the study examines the risk factors associated with placenta accreta* after vaginal delivery. Until now, this complication of pregnancy has been seen, in the majority of cases, in women who have had another complication of pregnancy, placenta previa. However, the study showed that more than half the cases of placenta accreta occurred in women with no previous history of placenta previa or caesarean section. But these women had had recourse to...

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At Versailles on Monday 4 March 2024, French parliamentarians meeting in Congress voted 780 to 52 to include the freedom to have an abortion in the Constitution. The single article aimed at amending article 34 of the Constitution was added to the list of citizens' rights and freedoms in the following terms: "The law shall determine the conditions under which the freedom guaranteed to a woman to have recourse to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy is exercised". "Guaranteed freedom":...

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Assisted reproduction

At a time when fertility is controlled, delayed if necessary or brandished as a right when the desire for a child arises, René Frydman's thoughts on the new tyranny of reproduction are relevant, but also questionable. Can we use techniques that make totally artificial procreation possible without falling into the abuses he fears, such as surrogate motherhood, the dream of an artificial womb or womb transplants for transgender men? What's more, while he warns against a diversion of medicine by ...

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The ruling was prompted by a complaint lodged against a clinic by three couples whose embryos stored for in vitro fertilisation were accidentally destroyed in 2020. The Supreme Court based its decision on the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act of 1872. The justices relied on specific case law (Mack v. Carmack) to define the term "minor child" and to declare that unborn children fell within that definition - "regardless of stage of development and regardless of location", in the words of Justice...

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