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The French Legislative Approach To Bioethics With Special Reference To Human Reproduction
Christian BYK*
* Secretary General Internal Association of Law, Ethics and Science, FRANCE
As in other Western European countries (Germany, the U.K.), the French legislative process lasted nearly ten years, giving the evidence of the difficulties to find solutions acceptable by the society as a whole. In France the initiative to stimulate a public debate came from the Government which set up in 1983 a National Advisory Bioethics Commission and organized in 1985 a public forum on Genetics, Procreation and Law. Soon, the opinions adopted by the National Bioethics Committee were considered as possible working documents for a possible legislation and in 1986 the Prime Minister appointed an ad hoc Committee in charge with drafting a bill.
However its report (From Ethics to Law) published in 1988 suggested so many new legislations that researchers and physicians sometimes strongly reacted against it considering that such regulations would seriously limit research activities. Consequently, the Government asked for further reports on different aspects (comparative law genetics, prenatal diagnosis) before submitting to Parliament, in 1992, three bills (on the statue of the human body the new biomedical technologies, and data protection and medical research). It is only after the 1993 General Election that those bill were finally debated and adop-ted in 1994. Although the French Constitutional court ruled the laws were in conformity with the principles of Human Rights, still many controversial issues have not been yet resolved (what kind of rights, studies could be authorised on embryos in vitro? What do decide with frozen embryos?) Therefore it has been decided that after 5 years the Parliament will reopen its debate on those issues.Keywords: Yeni üreme teknikleri, Yasal reform, Fransa, KamuoyuTurkiye Klinikleri J Med Ethics 1997, 5:1-5
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