by NexDev | March 18, 2016 | Maternity, News
In the context of the application of the new measures created by the January 26, 2916 Health Law, the 7-day reflection period has been removed for women wishing to proceed with an abortion, and this remains a sensitive issue.
Grégoire JAHAN, Delegate for Alliance VITA in the Haute-Garonne department, has just been interviewed by the “Nouveau Journal Toulousain” on this issue, against Muriel Piwo, a militant from “Osez le féminisme 31” (Dare feminism 31)
Some extracts of our delegate’s response:
« Those who promote the amendment to remove the reflection period before abortion, pretend that this reflection period would be “condescending and contemptuous”. However many women who solicit our crisis center www.sosbebe.org tell us that their decision is not easy. For a pregnant woman, whose body undergoes changes related to the presence of another life inside her, it is normal to experience ambivalence and to be torn between accepting the child and the upheavals that this child will bring in their life.
The reflection period after the first consultation for an abortion offers a time of freedom which protects women from panic and outside pressure and also allows time for a sometimes difficult dialogue with the father of the child. This time allows the women to gather information on abortion, but also on social aid (subsidies for young children, lodging, unemployment…) and on the rights for pregnant women (job protection…). In fact what is truly “contemptuous” for the women who need this time period, is to qualify it as “condescending”.”
This is the first time that we have heard that reflection could impede choice and freedom. Whenever signing a contract, before an esthetic surgical operation or a purchase of a high amount, the absence of such reflection period would be considered unfair… then why should it be removed in the case of abortion where the effect is irreversible, seals the destiny and leaves indelible marks? In fact, according to the 2010 IFOP, an independent French polling and survey institute, 83% of women think that “abortion leaves psychological traces which are complicated for women to live with”.
Therefore, even if it is no longer mandatory, this reflection period should be kept for women to be truly free in making their decision.”
For the full debate : Le Nouveau Journal Toulousain
by NexDev | March 17, 2016 | End of life, News, Palliative care
In its report published Monday, March 14, 2016, the French Inspection Générale des Affaires Sociales (IGAS)1 suggests to involve family practitioners in having advance directives written by their patients and included in the shared medical records.
This past Monday, March 14, the IGAS published its report entitled “Expertise on the ways of handling advance directives at the end of life”. This report was submitted to the Health Minister in October 2015; it was requested by the minister to have expert advice with a view to identify the best actors to administer the national register of advance directives, planned by Article 8 of the February 2, 2016 law on the end of life.
According to the text, « all adult individuals can write advance directives in case they become unable to express their will. These advance directives express the will of the person for the end of life regarding the conditions of continuation, limitation, stopping or refusing treatment or medical acts.” With this law, the advance directives become constraining: “the doctor is bound to them”, except in cases of life-threatening emergencies and “when the advance directives are obviously inappropriate or non-compliant with the medical situation”. Otherwise, the law provides that the advance directives be electronically saved “on a national register in compliance with the January 6, 1978 law # 78-17 related to data, files and freedom”.
The IGAS recommends distinguishing two separate functions for the registry: on the one hand, information and advertising functions for the public and health professionals, and on the other hand, handling the registry.
For the first objective of information and adertising functions, the IGAS suggests confiding this role to the Centre National des Soins Palliatifs et de la Fin de CIe (CNSPFV) 2, created by decree last January and planned for in the national plan for palliative care 2015-2018. It brings together the teams from the National Observatory for the End of Life and the National Center of Resources for Palliative Care.
The IGAS also suggests giving family practitioners a central role in developing patient awareness and in helping them write advance directives. The IGAS considers that “the family practitioner is a professional with close ties, the most likely to lend his help to the patient.”
For handling the national registry, the IGAS examined several possible candidates, such as ABM (Agency of Biomedicine) or ADMD (the Association for the Right to Die in Dignity), who requested the creation of the registry and even asked to handle it. The Agency for Biomedicine was not chosen for ethical reasons and lack of competence. And the ADMD was not chosen either; the IGAS considers that its “active request for helping one die” does not respond to the neutrality required.
Finally, the IGAS suggests integrating the advance directives into the Shared Medical Records, planned by the January 26, 2016 Health Law and implemented by Health Insurance. According to the IGAS, “the Shared Medical Records is the most adapted tool to ensure at the least cost, the identification of patients, the preservation, and the security when interrogated”. And they conclude: “None of the other existing operators can do better, faster and at less cost.”
1French government audit, evaluation and inspection office for health, social security, social cohesion, employment and labour policies and organisations.
2National Center for Palliative Care and End of Life
by NexDev | March 11, 2016 | Bioethics, News
On March 4, the Parliamentary Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment (OPECST) announced adopting a feasibility study carried out by Senator Catherine Procaccia and Deputy Jean-Yves Le Déaut for a report on “the economic, environmental, health and ethical issues for biotechnology in the light of new lines of research.
The framework for the #CRISPR-Cas9 technology will be examined.
For Alliance VITA, this subject is of major importance, and the decision of the OPECST to examine this issue is encouraging.
This is a prodigious genetic engineering technique, and although future perspectives are promising, it raises ethical issues for which, France, as the country of Human Rights with its bioethical laws, has expertise to share with the rest of the world.
For more details: Expert’s note CRISPR-CAS9: the modification of the human genome
1Parliamentary Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment
by NexDev | March 10, 2016 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation, News
As the date for an important meeting at the Council of Europe approaches regarding surrogacy, a delegation from No Maternity Traffic presented a petition on March 10, 2016 signed by European citizens and requesting universal prohibition of surrogacy.
On March 15 in Paris, the Committee on Social Affairs of the Parliamentary Assembly will meet to examine a draft resolution on surrogacy. If this resolution is voted in its’ current state, it could lead to the liberalization of surrogacy on an international scale.
To oppose this dangerous tendency, the collective group No Maternity Traffic officially presented this European petition with 107,967 signatures to call for prohibition of all forms of surrogacy.
Caroline Roux, Director of VITA International and member of the No Maternity Traffic delegation, emphasizes the importance for citizens to rally against this practice which represents a serious transgression against the rights of women and children, and the responsibility of the Council of Europe which is supposed to protect and promote Human Rights.
This is why the collective group, No Maternity Traffic, of which VITA is an active supporter, is organizing next March 15, the day the Committee meets, a gathering and a press conference in front of the Office of the Council of Europe where the vote on surrogacy will be held in private proceedings. Rally starting at 8/30, in front of 55 Avenue Kléber, Paris 16th district (Boissière Metro Station).
by NexDev | March 9, 2016 | News
Men and women, are we so different? And where do our differences come from? From Simone de Beauvoir’s to Judith Butler’s gender theory, to the Najat Vallaud-Belkacem‘s fight for equality between boys and girls, the idea is becoming widespread that it is mainly the consequence of cultural conditioning, or worse, a devious subservience of women to long-standing patriarchy. In support of these contentions, numerous injustices against women can be observed, and one should be able to denounce them. It is fair to demand that women must be respected; but should they be respected in an identical manner as men, or by recognizing their differences? Is it fair to recognize the same desires and skills for men as for women, or on the contrary to recognize women’s particular aspirations and talents?
Firstly, why are we so different? What distinguishes men and women is their difference of sex because of sexual reproduction. Is it only a morphological and biological detail without any social consequence? Sexual complementarity is essential for conception, gestation and birth of children. But a child’s personal history doesn’t stop at birth, it is only the beginning. And the parents are well aware, that to forge a man or a woman, the child needs many years of education, of slow learning. Therefore, the role of the father and the mother do no stop with breast-weaning of the child.
Those in National Education often consider that the entry to school should mark the beginning for learning civic education, a public service founding our social unity, one of the missions would be to liberate the child from any old-fashioned family conditioning. To such a point that teachers seem upset when parents reclaim their role as the primary educator, and take an interest in the pedagogical contents of the teaching. But in practice, the school quickly turns back to the parents, judging them as failing, whenever the child’s behavior reflects unhappiness, either by showing agressivity, depressive or even suicidal tendencies, indiscipline or becoming a school drop-out.
Yes, the father and the mother continue to have an essential role to play in the education of the child, until he reaches the age of adulthood. Under these conditions, in the very same logic as sexual reproduction, why should the role of the father and the mother be identical, non-differentiated? In fact, what do we expect from a father, what do we expect from a mother? And if nature has inscribed differences in us for the conception, would it not be the same for education, from a physical as well as psychological viewpoint? Undoubtedly, we need to rediscover the fundamental roles of the father and the mother to understand what establishes the difference between men and women.
