“Our main aim is to treat patients, alleviate suffering and ultimately prevent disease. Apart from the aforementioned roles, there’s nothing else for us to do“, explains Dr. Raphaël Nogier, General Practitioner in Lyon, and co-signatory of the petition sent by 1,600 doctors to the Conseil de l’Ordre des Médecins to highlight their opposition to “medically assisted reproduction for all“.
“The purpose of this petition is simply to remind everyone of the role of medicine. With medically assisted reproduction for all, for single women or lesbian couples, we are being asked to inseminate and perform a medical procedure when these women are perfectly healthy. We are going above and beyond our remit, which is to restore functions that are not working. A 30-year-old woman with a healthy gynaecological system can have a child under normal conditions. So why ask doctors to intervene? Medicine must be respected, not instrumentalised. The doctor has a very specific role. We are primarily here to take orders from our patients, not from the State“, he adds.
According to him, “medically assisted reproduction for all” could have a hazardous impact on the future of children conceived in this way. ” If it is used to help single women or lesbian couples, we are inevitably removing the presence of a father. There won’t be any fathers any more! We are creating orphans, and orphans who will no longer have any family tree since sperm donors are anonymous. Those who want to make medically assisted reproduction available to all are basing their argument on satisfying the desire of these women to have children. But, at some point, a whole generation of children will want a father. This could have dramatic repercussions“.
For further reading: The doctors’ petition
Sud Radio, Benjamin Jeanjean (30/05/2018),