Bioethics Convention opening in January 2026

Bioethics Convention opening in January 2026

The Bioethics Convention opening in January 2026, represents a prelude to a report by the CCNE (National Consultative Ethics Committee) for biology and health followed by a possible revision to the previous law dated 2021. Such revision would not come into force before 2028.

The Bioethics Laws

The laws concerning bioethics are intended to manage the development of biomedical progress in order to “Protect the fundamental human rights”. They assemble many articles of the public health code, the civil code and the penal code as well as the code for social action and families in particular. In France, the first bioethics laws in 1994 were subject to revisions / modifications in 2004, 2011, and 2013.

The current bioethics law was adopted in 2021. Each new law has brought with it new additional transgressions which the previous law claimed to contain.

What is included in the 2021 law currently in force?

The law adopted on 2nd August 2021 further formalises the “right to a child” and a “right to research” to the detriment of an approach centred on respect for human life from its very beginning, and on the refusal of reification (i.e. the treatment of a human being as a commodity). The text adopted further registers the bioethics law in a logic of adaptation to the new and vertiginous technical capabilities moving away from the fundamental human rights.

• Medically Assisted Procreation (ART)

Promoted in the media as “ART for all”, the law authorises and organises access to medical procreation techniques for women, whether single or in partnerships. The condition of medical infertility has been abandoned: resorting to ART is simply conditional on the existence of a “parental project”.

Self-preservation of gametes for no medical reason has also been introduced. The gametes collected are stored in centres which are approved for the activity.

Filiation becomes principally based on the will, registered through the existence of a “parental project”, and no longer through a link or a biological reality. Birth certificates can now therefore record two women as the mothers of a child.

Concerning access to their origins for children conceived through donated gametes, the law puts an end to the anonymity of the donor.  With hindsight, the said anonymity was unable to resist the search for their origins by children conceived by such techniques, on becoming adults.

Henceforth, people born through ART may, on reaching adulthood and at their request, submit an application for access to the identity of their donor (surname at birth, first names, sex, date and place of birth) as well as their non-identifying data.  The first children thus born will not be able to gain access before 2039 or 2040, notwithstanding that it provides no right to any relation with the third-party-donor.

Surrogate motherhood remains prohibited in principle in France but a third filiation channel has been opened up by the Court of appeals via the so-called Exequatur procedure. Post-mortem ART (after the death of one or both members of a couple, for which gametes or embryos have been freeze-preserved) also remains prohibited as is the so-called ROP method (Receipt of the Oocyte of the Partner”) where an oocyte is collected from one woman, fertilized in vitro by a third-party donor prior to being implanted in the uterus of the other woman.

• Research on the human embryo

Furthermore, the 2021 law considerably reduced the protection due to the human embryo by facilitating its availability and its exploitation, in other words considering it as a material for research like any other. For example, human cells may now be integrated in the embryos of other species.

With respect to the information procedures and gathering of consent for the donation of supernumerary embryos for research, the law substitutes the written confirmation of consent, with the possibility for the couple to revoke such consent in writing within a three-month period, the absence of such revocation being considered as confirmation of the initial consent (article L.2141-4 of the public health code).

• Pre-Implantation Diagnosis (PID)

Regarding Double PID (or HLA-PID, the so-called “medicine baby” technique) the 2021 law has deleted the obligation that all the healthy embryos preserved by a couple must be implanted before considering any new IVF attempt (article L 1231-4 of the public health code) with a view to performing a double PID.

• Pre-natal screening (PNS)

PNS has been extended to a genetic diagnosis for parents in the case of fortuitous discoveries during the habitual examinations.

The 2021 law has included the procedures in cases of “embryonic reduction”, a practice which consists in the arbitrary elimination of one or more foetuses in the context of a multiple pregnancy even if those foetuses are in good health.

The law applies to therapeutic abortion those provisions which exist for abortion for minor women and adds article L. 2213-4 stating that “any doctor who refuses to conduct a therapeutic abortion must inform the interested party without delay of the refusal and provide her immediately with the names of practitioners liable to undertake such an operation”.

The law finally deletes the obligation to provide the woman with a cooling-off period of at least one week before performing the abortion in the event of a strong probability that the child- to-be will be suffering from a particularly serious condition, recognised as incurable at the moment of diagnosis.

The Bioethics Convention: Procedures and calendar

The bioethics law itself provides that any intended reform concerning ethical problems and societal matters mentioned in the law must be preceded by a public debate in the form of a convention. Such conventions are organised at the initiative of the CCNE, following consultation of the applicable permanent parliamentary commissions and the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices (OPECST).

Bioethics conventions serve a double purpose:

• “Identification of emerging ethical questions associated with scientific and societal advances.
• Enlightening of the legislator, ahead of the revision of bioethics laws when they take place, thanks to an argued analysis and a pluralist vision of the stakes.”

In the context of this national consultation, several devices are deployed:

• Citizens’ debates in the regions, in Paris and overseas conducted by the Regional Ethics Reflection Spaces (ERER)
• A citizens’ committee organised in partnership with the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) which will have to address two questions
• Auditions of the major institutions, academies, various learned companies, as well as associations between 12th January and 10th April 2025.

The bioethics conventions are opening three new lines of thought (Justifiable care: how far to go with treatments? Prevention in health; Health overseas) in addition to the usual subjects covered in the bioethics law:

• Genetic examinations in genomic medicine;
• Procreation;
• Neuroscience;
• Stem cells and organoids;
• Organ transplants and xenografts;
• Digital technology, AI and health;
• Health, environment and climate.

The CCNE should sum up all these contributions early June in the form of a report on the 2026 bioethics convention before providing its own advice on a certain number of major bioethics subjects in the autumn of 2026 to enlighten and prepare the future bioethics law which should not appear until 2028.

The voice of Alliance VITA in the service of the protection of the most fragile

Participation in the revision of the bioethics law represents for Alliance VITA a necessary exercise of vigilance and proposal.  The various laws have actually endorsed major transgressions: the collection of gametes, freeze-preservation, screening and destruction of embryos, extension of PNS and PID at the risk of eugenics. Thus, Alliance VITA intends to mobilise:

• By being auditioned by the CCNE in the context of the convention
• By being present at the citizens’ debates in the regions, in Paris and overseas via its network of over 1,000 members all over the French territories.
  

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