On March 3, 2020, the French National Consultative Committee on Ethics (“CCNE”) published the "Ethical Challenges of Gene Editing: Between Hope and Caution". The members had unanimously adopted these recommendations on September 19, 2019. This statement referred to as...
Although the final version of the bioethics law has yet to be voted in France, the Senate recently removed the article which bans the creation of transgenic embryos. The international pressure is growing; consequently, on March 3, 2020, ethics councils in 3 countries...
On March 3, 2020 in Belgium, the Federal Control Commission for Evaluating Euthanasia (“CFCEE”) enumerated 2655 official cases of euthanasia in 2019; 12.5% more than the previous year. The majority of the individuals were aged 60 to 89, with 67.8% over age 70. Most...
The French company Carmat announced a few days ago that it has received permission to resume its clinical studies on artificial heart. The clinical trials on this device had been suspended in France following the death of a patient. Carmat has now been allowed to...
On February 27, 2020, the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany overturned the legal ban which prohibited doctors or associations from “organizing” suicide, by declaring the 2015 law unconstitutional. In 2015, the German parliament (“Bundestag”) voted to prohibit...
Last October in Belgium, a bill was tabled to extend the conditions permitting euthanasia. The State Council has voiced reserve on the bill’s three flagship measures. The validity of advance euthanasia directives would be extended from five years to an unlimited...
