The right-wing majority Senate adopted on the night of Wednesday to Thursday the bioethics bill, amputated from its emblematic measure, the opening of the PMA to all women, a hasty clap of end which caused anger and bitterness to the left.
At the end of two days of debates marked by confusion, the text considered in second reading was adopted by show of hands at a little more than 1:30 in the morning, with the only votes of the right-wing senatorial majority.
Deprived of its first article on the opening of ART (medically assisted procreation), the text has also lost another of its “pillars”, the possibility for women of self-preservation of their oocytes without medical reason. These provisions may however be reinstated by the deputies.
The left and the majority RDPI En Marche and RDSE groups with a radical majority voted against “a completely distorted text”, according to Thani Mohamed Soilihi (RDPI).
“You will adopt this text without us because this text is the result of a mess,” said PS rapporteur Bernard Jomier.
“What happened in a year? “Asked the leader of environmental senators Guillaume Gontard. At first reading, just a year ago, the Senate had in fact voted the text with its flagship measure opening the assisted reproduction to couples of women and to single women, excluding, however, support by Social Security.
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Bernard Jomier pointed to “a radicalization of positions” on the right, “which perhaps relates to other deadlines”.
The leader of LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, is opposed to the opening of the PMA
A potential presidential candidate in 2022, the leader of senators LR Bruno Retailleau is resolutely opposed to the opening of the PMA.
The Secretary of State for Children and Families Adrien Taquet, who regretted “the outcome” of the debates, had also launched a “spike” on Tuesday evening, evoking “hidden electoral ambitions which are advancing”.
It was precisely on Tuesday that the fate of article 1 of the text was played out, with first the adoption of an amendment aimed at excluding single women from the extension of assisted reproduction, which marked a hardening positions.
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Then came “a session incident”, according to a senator LR: the adoption under contested conditions on the right of an amendment opening the post-mortem PMA (after the death of the spouse).
“You deceived us”
No longer satisfying anyone, article 1 was then rejected, but with the promise of a second deliberation requested by the LR president of the bioethics commission Alain Milon, himself in favor of the opening of the PMA.
All day Wednesday, this second deliberation was topical, parliamentary sources reporting consultations with the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher.
But against all expectations, the committee abandoned the second deliberation. Laurence Cohen (predominantly communist CRCE) cried out “scandal”, denouncing “dishonesty”. “You took us hostages,” “you deceived us,” she said. Pointing to “a shipwreck”, Bernard Jomier criticized the right for “not assuming” its “antagonisms” on this text.
The deletion of article 1 did not prevent the Senate from voting on the reform of filiation which results from the opening of the assisted reproduction to couples of women. The upper house has restored its text voted on at first reading, aiming to establish the filiation of the intended mother, the one who has not given birth, by adoption.
The senators also rewrote the article concerning the filiation of a child born abroad from a surrogacy (surrogacy), prohibited in France, in order to “prohibit any complete transcription” of a foreign birth certificate.
On the research side, they banned the creation of transgenic embryos and chimeric embryos, as well as all techniques for genomic modification of human embryos.
Original article by : www.leparisien.fr