We
will vote on June 14 next on preimplantation diagnosis. This
is to amend the Constitution so that it becomes possible, as part of an
assisted reproduction procedure, select the embryo that is implanted in the
uterus of the mother on the basis of a diagnosis Preimplantation. Currently,
the Constitution does not produce enough embryos nor to keep them long enough
for such an analysis can be done.
If
this vote is quite special since the implementing legislation related to the
constitutional amendment has already been debated and approved by parliament. Opponents
have announced they would fight the referendum. We will vote twice. On
14 June, only the constitutional amendment we will be subject, namely the
decision in principle to authorize the preimplantation diagnosis. If
that vote is positive, we will vote in a second time, because the outcome of
the referendum is little doubt, on the implementing legislation. We
can then say if we accept the way Parliament wanted to apply the new
constitutional provision, or whether it should revise the law to make the
application of more restrictive constitutional article.
Preimplantation
diagnosis relieves bearers of serious genetic diseases
If
the subject raises very emotional discussions, it is in reality few people as
direct employees. Preimplantation
genetic diagnosis is possible that as part of an assisted reproduction
procedure. These
procedures are subject, according to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, to
strict criteria and are available only to couples with infertility problems. Currently,
this corresponds to about 2,000 births over 80,000 per year.
Preimplantation
diagnosis is mainly aimed at couples who are capable of transmitting a serious
and incurable genetic disease. Embryos are
created through in vitro fertilization. While
they comprise only ten cells, they are analyzed and are implanted in the uterus
of the future mother an embryo which has been able to verify that it is not
reached by the genetic disease which his parents are carriers. Prospective
parents are therefore freed from anxiety to transmit to their descendants the
terrible disease from which they suffer themselves or they are sometimes only
healthy carriers. Assessing
the number of cases concerned to 50 to 100 per year.
Pathologies
detected by preimplantation diagnosis are already detectable, so legally
entitled, as part of prenatal diagnosis carried out on a developing embryo in
the womb. If
the prospective parents and learn that they have passed on their genetic
disease to their unborn child, they still have the choice of abortion. If
necessary, it is an intrusive and violent intervention for both parents and
especially of course for women. Achieving
a diagnosis before the start of pregnancy, an embryo of a few cells, and
implantation of an embryo which is known to not be carrying the disease, is
therefore a much more approach simple
and much less traumatic for parents. From
an ethical standpoint, it is also less shocking to choose at this very early
stage in the laboratory and a Non-embryo of the disease, rather than
eliminating an embryo of weeks or a fetus, which s' is already
developed in the womb.
Recall
that the realization of a preimplantation diagnosis is an absolutely free
choice on the part of carrier couples from serious and incurable genetic
diseases, in the same way that prenatal diagnosis is not imposed. This
is simply, for those of them who do not want to transmit the genetic disease
they carry is able to achieve earlier diagnosis, to avoid a subsequent
abortion.
Preimplantation
diagnosis is practiced around the world for twenty years. A
dozen European countries permits, such as Spain, the Netherlands or Belgium. Currently,
Swiss couples can transmit a serious genetic disorder and have sufficient
resources are likely to move to Europe to access the pre-implantation
diagnosis, due to the impossibility of achieving it in Switzerland. This
obviously constitutes unequal treatment with couples who can not afford it. Medically
assisted procreation is very expensive and is not reimbursed by insurance,
despite the great suffering that can arise regarding fertility problems within
a couple. The
situation would remain unchanged with the authorization of preimplantation
diagnosis, which would not financed by insurance.
Open
PGD other couples in assisted reproductive procedure?
Access
to pre-implantation diagnosis for couples that can transmit a serious genetic
disease is relatively contested. Initially,
the Federal Council had not open this practice to other cases. However,
the Parliament decided otherwise under law. Indeed,
it would provide access to preimplantation diagnosis to all couples eligible
for assisted reproduction procedure, namely to all couples with infertility problems,
not just those at risk of transmitting serious genetic disease to their
child. Preimplantation
diagnosis then would detect potential chromosomal abnormalities, including
trisomy 21 is the most known example. Today
many couples suffering from infertility problems - and thus resorting to
assisted reproduction - in relation to their age. These
couples have a much higher risk of having a child with chromosomal
abnormalities, since these increase dramatically with age of parents and, in
particular, that of the mother.
Those
among these couples do not feel ready to take on a child with disabilities may,
at present already make a prenatal diagnosis and, if necessary, decide to
terminate the pregnancy. The
situation is similar to that of couples capable of transmitting a serious
genetic disease: the authorization of pre-implantation diagnosis only enables
those who wish to avoid abortion by selecting an embryo having no chromosomal
abnormality. In
addition, the ability to select an embryo free of chromosomal abnormality
reduces the risk of miscarriage and therefore increases the chances for the
women, to carry their pregnancies, which often happens after many arduous and
unsuccessful attempts to assisted reproduction.
It
should be noted again that this option would not be available to all couples,
but only to those who use an assisted reproduction procedure, that is to say to
couples with infertility problems. It is pertinent to
maintain this limitation. First,
the AHR is a long procedure, uncertain, painful and difficult, especially for
the future mother. It
must remain reserved to cases of infertility, as currently required by law. Then
there is all the more important for those of those couples who do not feel
ready to raise a disabled child and already going through serious difficulties
to achieve a pregnancy, to avoid abortion, which in addition to the trauma it
is directly related mean returning to a new procedure of medically assisted
procreation and painful no guarantee of success.
Citizens
who do not wish to allow PGD to all couples with infertility problems, but
nevertheless want the bearers of serious and incurable genetic disease can
benefit, can express it by accepting the constitutional article 14 next
June, but refusing law giving effect during the vote in the referendum.
A
matter of responsibility to our children and not entitled to a perfect child
For
my part, I consider that as the constitutional article that implementing
legislation should be supported:
-
It does not authorize everything and anything, and those who cry to eugenics
show a guilty exaggeration. Preimplantation
diagnosis remains linked to medically assisted procreation, which concerns only
a limited number of couples, according to strict criteria of the law on
medically assisted procreation. Only
serious and incurable genetic diseases and in case of acceptance of the law,
chromosomal abnormalities can also be detected. This
does by no means select embryos on criteria of gender or any other
characteristic. Both the Constitution
and the law prohibit. Finally,
this approach remains completely voluntary, as is currently the prenatal
diagnosis.
-
The purpose of preimplantation diagnosis is not to produce perfect children,
but to alleviate the legitimate anxieties of couples who do not want to convey
a serious and incurable disease to their children and, if the implementing
legislation is accepted, the couples
forced into an assisted reproduction procedure and do not feel ready to take a
disabled child. These
future parents can already use today to prenatal diagnosis that can lead, in
the case of transmission of a serious genetic disorder or a chromosomal
abnormality on abortion. I
will always fight for women who wish to have the right to abort. However,
I consider that this is an act heavy that one should try to avoid as far as
possible. Preimplantation
diagnosis allows to do so in a number of cases. The
present system is absurd, because you can not select an embryo of a few cells,
so that we can terminate a pregnancy, which means destroying an embryo or a
fetus several weeks. This
must change.
-
The achievement of pre-implantation diagnostics, even if they would also be
applied to chromosomal abnormalities, does not mean that there will be more
different children or will have less respect for the disabled. First,
PGD only a limited number of serious genetic diseases or, in the case of a
wider application of chromosomal abnormalities. Then,
it is accessible only to a limited number of couples (remember, only 2,000 out
of 80,000 births per year are related to medically assisted procreation) and
all these couples are will not use, since it is their free choice. Finally,
couples who already today do not want to give birth to a child which they would
have passed a serious genetic disease or suffering from a genetic defect, can
benefit from prenatal diagnosis and terminate the pregnancy. Moreover,
the fact that there is more or less different and disabled has no role in
relation to our responsibility to make them all and to all a dignified life and
to show them the same respect to a person healthy.
This
is a fundamental ethical duty, which remains valid at all times and would still
even if only one person in the world was affected by disability.
To
conclude, I would like to quote my colleague Luc Recordon, himself disabled but
favorable both constitutional article to the law:
"There
can be no question of a right to a healthy child. However,
there is an obligation to society to allow people to exercise their
responsibility with the greatest possible elements in hand vis-à-vis the
potential future child. For
what you say and what shall I say, I am severely disabled, if I had a child for
whom I would not have taken all the precautions to be born in the best possible
condition, or made, if necessary with
full knowledge of the facts, the choice to accept or to refuse to have a child?
What
then can I answer the child who would tell me "You let me come into the
world as you know, given your own genetic history, that I might have this or
that? "I
can not imagine that I could have taken this responsibility without any fact,
knowingly, to assume my responsibility facing a potential child. It
is not a right to history, it is a responsibility of history in front of him,
including the responsibility to tell her "I knew there was a disability
and, for reasons that belong to me and I
can explain, in full knowledge, I chose you to come to the world. "
IVF:
How to avoid as possible the risk of mistaken identity
Paris,
Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - The revelation by the Stampa of an error at the time
of implantation of IVF embryos in an Italian woman of forty years on 4 December
in Rome raised an important wave of
emotion. Within
the institution obviously where medical assistance service procreation was
closed, but in the whole Italian society puts this matter on the front of the
scene of many ethical debates around abortion and IVF
that remain very sensitive in this country. But
this emotion regard beyond all the teams that carry the world to IVF. This
case has just remind them that the inversion of gametes or embryos remains
their "obsession", explains Professor Jean-Luc Pouly, obstetrician
gynecologist at the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand, told the Nouvel
Observateur.
No
two patients bearing a name close on the same day in the French centers
In
France, the accidents they concern an error at the time of insemination, IVF or
the location can be reported (without obligation) at the Biomedicine Agency. "We
realized that there was every year in France, a dozen embryo transfer errors
which one could see immediately," says Jean-Luc Pouly. Upon
detection of the error, a treatment for preventing pregnancy is administered to
the patient. To
minimize the risk of poor transfer, procedures were recommended in 2008, which
are followed by the majority of institutions. These
include a quadruple check on transfer of the embryo: first by two biologists,
then by the nurse and the doctor. These
actors undertake a strict verification of the identity of the patient expressly
requested his name not only asking him to confirm it. "In
such an event, patients can be so stressed that they would be able to
answer" yes "while one is mistaken name. The
question surprised them, but they are told that this is a security measure,
"said Jean-Luc Pouly. Other
precautions: two patients with the same name or close family names are never
received the same day. "This
may happen more often grows only" still finds the practitioner.
Remained
unknown errors?
Thanks
to such measures, errors are rare in France but also in the world. Over
the last thirty years the revelations of inversion at the time of birth were
rare: two or three cases have been reported. But
some have gone unnoticed, while findings during pregnancy as was the case in
Italy on the occasion of a CVS appear extremely unlikely.