The secrete but active mobilization of lobbies and institutions
The law for homosexual marriage has just been voted that the pressures are orchestrated to obtain other evolutions.
Mid-July 2013, the French Obstetrician Gynecologists members of the National College of French Gynecologists & Obstetricians (CNGOF) received a “confidential survey” to collect their experience and their opinion on the access to Medically Assisted Procreation (MAP) for homosexual couples in France. Two days later, a network of “gay friendly physicians” opened. Finally, a bill has been filed by socialist senators to open the MAP to homosexual at the end of the week. The accumulation of these announcements in such record time shows that gay lobbies are at work, what lets presume the quick opening of MAP and Surrogacy.
The confidential survey of the Academy of Medicine
The survey called “confidential” on the access to MAP for homosexual couples in France is made by the National Academy of Medicine, with the aid of the CNGOF and supported by the professors Pierre Jouannet (1) and Roger Henrion (2). It is part of a think tank established by the Academy of Medicine on the possible opening of MAP and Surrogacy for homosexual couples.
Within the context of tension of the “marriage for all” law particularly due to its possible consequences on MPA and Surrogacy for homosexual couples, it is surprising to note that a working group from the National Academy of Medicine examines the subject in great secrecy interviewing the practitioners on their activities in the field. It is all the most surprising that the citizens will only be consulted through States General organized by the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) at the beginning of 2014.
Besides a cover letter willing to be reassuring by specifying to stay at a stage of reflection, the Academy of Medicine starts a very concrete survey to take the temperature of practitioners and establishing statistics on what is made in France. The questions of the survey are oriented: we particularly can read the request of admission of professionals who advised homosexual couples for MAP or surrogacy made in France or abroad. Or even, the questionnaire asks if these professionals have participated actively to this type of processes in France, without mentioning they are illegal.
How can the National Academy of Medicine ask to its own fellows to confess behaviors which are perfectly prohibited, and considered to date as contrary to the medical deontology and French public order?
The general directorate of health, supported by the French National College of Physicians, on 21st December 2012, reminded that practitioners who gave this kind of advice could have five years of imprisonment and fine of 75,000 euros.
The confidential approach of the National Academy of Medicine can only generate suspicions.
How cannot think that the objective of this survey is part of the same logics than the Taubira’s circular on Surrogacy, in other words that it proposes to start from reality of some contra legem cases, to make the law change? The suspicion is reinforced when we learn that this “confidential” questionnaire has been transmitted to the Association des parents et futurs parents gays et lesbiens (APGL) so that its members transmit it to their gynecologist…
Opening of a network of gay friendly physicians
Combination of circumstances, or opportunism, the day after the reception of the survey, the physicians are invited to visit the site “Gay Friendly Physicians”, announcing the opening of a network of physicians supporting the gay cause in September 2013. The law has not changed, and the debate has not started, but already a lot of milestones are in place so that practitioners who would direct homosexual couples to MAP or Surrogacy fell less guilty.
The bill of socialist senators
In parallel with the secret survey of the Academy of Medicine, senators of the socialist (3) group have filed a bill to open the MAP to homosexual couples. Their objective: compensate the “social infertility “and lead to MPA of convenience. It must be concluded that they do not wait for the citizen debate. If it is unlikely this bill is adopted before the opinion of the CCNE and the States General foreseen in 2014, this text participates voluntarily to prepare the spirits, and proves that the marriage for all was only the first work of liberal-libertarians.
It seems that the debate is again buried; leaving already very oriented actors to take over. Yet such societal challenges concern both citizens and experts and deserve to be known.
1. Expert in biology of human reproduction and medically assisted procreation, full member of Commissions “biology” and “reproduction and development” of the National Academy of Medicine.
2. Expert in gynecology and obstetrics, full member of the commission “reproduction and development” of the National Academy of Medicine and member of the active working group on the medically assisted procreation in jail.
3. Jean-Pierre GODEFROY, Roland COURTEAU, Bernard CAZEAU, Daniel RAOUL and Roger MADEC.