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Following Letter

N°52 - April 2004

American law recognizes the judicial personality of the fetus in utero

President Bush has just signed the law concerning unborn victims. This law that has just been passed in the United States defines as a separate crime the damage suffered by the fetus during an attack on a pregnant woman. The aggressor who commits a violent crime against a pregnant woman can therefore be prosecuted for two offences: with regard to the woman and with regard to the child she is carrying.

This text defines the unborn child as “a member of the Homo sapiens species carried in the uterus, whatever the stage of its development”.

Public Law n° 108-212 of 1st April 2004

The birth of a mouse by parthenogenesis?

After cloning, gynogenius
A team of Japanese researchers has just announced the birth of a mouse using cells from two female mice ⁽¹⁾ : its genome is composed of two sets of chromosomes of maternal origin, one set taken from a “normal” ovule and one set that came from the ovule of another genetically modified mouse. This technique has been baptized “gynogenius”. Some speak of parthenogenesis.

Is it a matter of parthenogenesis?
Normally mammals cannot reproduce without the cooperation of a male. Everything takes place as if the genes present on the maternal chromosomes and those carried by the paternal chromosomes have different and complementary roles that are absolutely necessary for embryonic development. This phenomenon is a manifestation of parental imprint. It is this genomic imprint that Tomohiro Kono has attempted to short-circuit in the hope of bringing the first parthenogenic mouse into the world. To do this the researcher used a female genetically modified mouse. The animal was subjected to a veritable transvestitism causing it to display, despite its sex, a genetic patrimony similar to that of a male. The scientists took a set of chromosomes from an ovule of this mouse and implanted this “asexual” genetic material into a mature ovule of a normal mouse. Two mice were born from this manipulation.

“If this work constitutes a technical feat, one cannot in fact say that it constitutes parthenogenesis in the measure that the reconstructed nuclei contain the genomes of two distinct animals” emphasizes Andras Paldi, an epigeneticist at the Généthon in Evry. On the other hand this experiment confirms “the major role of the parental genomic imprint in the impossibility of creating a mammal without fertilization” he adds.

“It is clear henceforth that the imprint functions in mammals as a sort of lock that prevents asexual reproduction” comments Jean-Pierre Ozil, a specialist in ovocyte activation at the National Institute of Agronomic Research, “but we are still far from knowing whether a means exists of circumventing this difficulty in order to achieve veritable parthegenosis without fertlizing an ovocyte with another female cell”.

(1) Nature 22nd April 2004

The judge and the accidental destruction of embryos

Damage entitled to compensation
The tribunal first opposed any form of compensation for material damage, basing itself on the article 16-1 of the civil code (“the human body, its elements and products cannot be considered as part of a patrimonial inheritance”). As a result it decided that embryos cannot be recognized as having a financial, economic or market value. The magistrates then refused to acknowledge any moral prejudice due to the fact that the “fertilized ovocytes are not persons” and that therefore this matter could not be seen as the loss of loved ones. Nevertheless the law recognizes without difficulty the need for compensation when it is a matter of the loss of an animal… In the end the couple was awarded the sum of 10,000 euros for “diverse disorders in the circumstances of their existence”. As Professor Bertrand Mathieu remarks “the decision in Amiens refuses all recognition of the embryo in vitro. However international law recognizes the embryo as a human being, and French law grants it protection in the name of the principle of dignity. It would therefore seem possible to imagine a moral prejudice due to the loss of a human being”. ⁽²⁾
 

(1) TA Amiens, 2nd Chamber, 9th March 2004, n° 021451

(2) Quoted in La Croix of 21st April 2004

Italian law limits artificial reproduction

Italian law limits artificial reproduction
After having made the headlines with its surrogate grandmothers and its menopausal mothers, Italy is now setting limits on the conditions for allowing recourse to artificial reproduction and is taking measures to protect the embryo ⁽¹⁾.

Conditions for access to artificial reproduction
These conditions of access are defined in the articles 4 and 5.

- A parental couple : the couple must consist of two adult persons, of different sex, married or cohabiting, potentially fertile and both living. Therefore insemination or transfer of embryos post mortem and access to artificial reproduction for menopausal women and homosexual couples are banned.

- Ban on heterologous artificial reproduction: the donation of gametes, surrogate mothers and all donations of supernumerary embryos are forbidden. Remember that in France, if surrogate motherhood is forbidden, the donation of sperm and supernumerary embryos to another infertile couple are quite possible, on the condition that they are free of charge and the object of a mutual consent between the two members of the couple.
The penalties incurred (article 12) are very severe. A fine of 300,000 to 600,000 euros punishes whoever uses gametes foreign to the couple for reproductive ends (heterologous IVF). Whoever creates, organizes or advertises publicity for the commercialization of gametes or embryos or surrogate motherhood is punished with between 3 months and two years in prison and a fine of 600,000 to 1 million euros.

- In the eyes of the law of filiation (articles 8 and 9) the law specifies that the parents of a child born by artificial reproduction can neither give birth anonymously, nor , in the case of the father, refuse paternity, even in the case of recourse to heterologous artificial reproduction (gift of sperm) in violation of the law. The child can only enjoy the status of legitimate or natural offspring of the couple that has had recourse to artificial reproduction.

Protection of the embryo
- Experimentation on embryos forbidden (article 13)

In all cases are banned:
- the production of human embryos for research purposes

- all forms of selection of embryos and gametes for eugenic purposes through interventions that use techniques of selection, manipulation or artificial procedure intended to alter the genetic patrimony of the embryo or gamete, or predetermine its characteristics, with the exception of interventions with a therapeutic or diagnostic end.

- Ban on cloning
Cloning by nuclear transfer, early scission of the embryo or ectogenesis are forbidden whether they are for reproductive or therapeutic ends. So-called reproductive or therapeutic cloning of embryos is punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison and a fine of between 200,000 and 1 million euros ; the doctor is forbidden to practice for life.

- Cryoconservation and the destruction of embryos are forbidden (article 14)
The number of embryos produced must not be above the number necessary for immediate and contemporary implantation, in general no more than three. When implantation in the uterus is not possible due to the state of health of the mother, for reasons beyond control that are unforeseeable at the time of fertilization, cryconservation is possible until the date of transfer, which is to be carried out as soon as possible. In theory embryonic reduction in the event of multiple pregnancy is forbidden. The violation of these bans is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of between 50,000 and 150,000 euros. The cryoconservation of gametes is permitted however.

In comparison, remember that in France the law* does not provide for a limitation of the number of ovocytes to be fertilized in vitro ; this practice therefore leads to the conception of supernumerary embryos and often to them being frozen until their parents decide on their fate.

After all the excesses that have occurred in this domain in Italy it seems that this country has set out on the path to a more rigorous control of these techniques than that seen among many of its European neighbours.

⁽¹⁾ Law of 19th February 2004: “Rules concerning artificial reproduction” Gazetta Ufficiale of 24/02/04

* consult the folder "Revision French bioethics laws" on www.genethique.org