French anti-IVF group to hold protest as debates on assisted procreation bill continue

Record ID: 1435007

  • Title: French anti-IVF group to hold protest as debates on assisted procreation bill continue
  • Date: 4th October 2019
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - JUNE 21, 2019) (AGENCY POOL) FRENCH PRESIDENT, EMMANUEL MACRON, GIVING THUMBS-UP SIGN TO GUESTS AS HE ENTERS ELYSEE PALACE
  • Embargoed: 18th October 2019 15:46
  • Keywords: IVF reforms Emmanuel Macron LGBT women's rights parliament lesbian couples Manif pour tous bioethics bill assisted procreation
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE
  • City: PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Lawmaking,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA007AZONHHJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: As rights activists highly anticipate a law that will extend assisted procreation to all women, a conservative group advocating a father figure in families are planning a big protest on Sunday (October 6).
    The Paris protest led by French anti-assisted procreation group Manif pour tous (Protests for everyone) comes as a bioethics bill that will extend the right to medically assisted procreation, known in France as PMA, to lesbian couples and single women continue to be debated in the French parliament.
    Until now, lesbian couples and single women wishing to bear children have to seek procedures abroad, most commonly in Belgium and Spain, forcing them to spend thousands of euros, to take a leave of absence and to see a new set of doctors.
    Laurene Chesnel, 39, is a mother of two children born with the help of artificial insemination in a Brussels clinic and raised with her female partner.
    As a lesbian woman and an advocate of LGBT rights, Chesnel is looking forward to the passage of the bill, which is being discussed in the parliament for debates that could take up to several months.
    "People have indeed realised that we are families just like others. So, there's no reason to push us aside," Chesnel said.
    Nearly two-thirds of French people are in favour of extending the PMA. A BVA poll in late April found that 65 percent agreed to it, 10 points higher than in 2014, a year after the same-sex marriage law was passed.
    "I view this as a great law in the history of women, in the same vein as the right to vote and the right to abortion," president of advocacy group Gaylib Catherine Michaud said.
    But a conservative movement remains opposed to the idea of families raising children with no father figure.
    Twenty associations, including the group that mobilised against same-sex marriage, Manif pour tous, announced a day of action on Sunday. They claim that the extension of the PMA to all women was a step towards surrogacy, which the bill does not seek to legalise.
    "It's really about women's subservience. And even when we say we can regulate it and it can be altruistic, that's not true," Manif pour tous President Ludovine de la Rochere said.
    But Chesnel said groups like Manif pour tous should mind their own business and give same-sex families like hers a break from "violent" moments that could be traumatic for their children.
    The extension of the PMA was a campaign promise of French President Emmanuel Macron. Responding to demands of LGBT groups, the measure will remove the medical criterion of infertility for women to qualify for access to assisted procreation procedures, such as intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).
    The health ministry estimates a doubling of the demand for PMA, now at 4,000 per year.
    The PMA is only one aspect of the wide-ranging bioethics bill, which will also touch on establishing marital filiation, lifting sperm donor anonymity, egg freezing, genetic testing and research on embryonic stem cells.
    A counter-protest against Manif pour tous' action is also slated to take place on Sunday.
    (Production: Michaela Cabrera, Ardee Napolitano, Thierry Chiarello, Clotaire Achi)
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