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Abortion

Abortion, the intentional termination of a pregnancy, has long been a subject of passionate debate in society and the legislature. It straddles the fine line between the right to self-determination and the protection of the life of the unborn child. In this contribution, we wish to examine the complexity of abortion, but rather as a principle, at a meta-level, detached from concrete clinical practice. This has the advantage of not prejudicing individual, sometimes heart-rending, cases. From a...

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On October 16, 2024, the Italian Senate voted to extend the criminalization of surrogate motherhood to include the “crime of surrogate motherhood committed abroad by an Italian citizen”. From now on, Italian nationals who use a surrogate mother abroad will also be liable to a penalty of up to two years' imprisonment and a €1 million fine. By describing surrogacy as a “universal crime”, the Italian senators have expressed their desire for global condemnation of...

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After the birth of two daughters conceived through artificial reproduction with a gamete donor, a woman asked the fertilization center for access to the donor's identifying and non-identifying information, without any medical reason. When UZ Brussel refused, the mother and one of her daughters turned to the Brussels Court of First Instance. The 2007 law “relating to medically assisted procreation and the destination of supernumerary embryos and gametes” stipulates that a...

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Palliative care

Every year in Belgium, tens of thousands of people and their families could benefit from such care, according to the Palliative Care Indicators Tool (PICT). This tool identifies patients in need of palliative care, based on criteria of frailty, incurability and severity of illness. Palliative care is not reserved solely for patients with a vital prognosis of less than 3 months, or for cancer sufferers. On the contrary, anyone suffering from a serious, progressive illness with no possible cure...

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Assisted reproduction

The study was based on data from artificial procreation registries in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) between 1984 and 2015. It covered all live-born children, over 7.7 million in total. Of these, 171,735 were born using artificial reproduction. The study shows that heart defects were around 36% more frequent in these babies than in those conceived naturally (absolute risk 1.84% vs. 1.15%). This risk is similar whatever the type of assisted reproduction (in vitro...

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This Shakespearean tragedy has been revisited by Peruvian playwright Chela De Ferrari and her “Teatro La Plaza” company, made up of eight actors, all of whom have Down's syndrome. They tell us their dreams, their hopes, their struggles to be considered as people, autonomous, capable of love, as well as their claim to be different. They share their suffering and their desire to be understood. They believe that “theater is perhaps the last resort” because it...

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The fact that the negative perception of people with disabilities leads to a high rate of abortions due to Down's syndrome is in practice linked to the widespread use of the NIP-test as a screening method in Belgium. This non-invasive blood test is routinely offered to pregnant women, and is fully reimbursed by the Belgian state. Although healthcare providers are supposed to leave the choice to couples faced with the news of a disability, more than 95% of pregnancies are nevertheless...

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According to a study published last June, the number of human embryos cryopreserved following artificial reproduction has reached a record level in the UK. Published in The New Bioethics, the study analysed data provided by the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) between 1991 and 2019. The figures show that at least 130,000 stored embryos have been destroyed in the UK since 1991. This situation, already problematic in itself, is particularly so in the UK, where legislation...

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Palliative care aims to relieve pain, alleviate mental, psychological, existential or spiritual suffering, safeguard the dignity of the sick person until their natural death and support those around them. The study began by analysing the impact of requests for euthanasia on overall patient care, noting that requests for information about euthanasia could sometimes divert patients and carers from the usual discussions about how to improve quality of life. However, when the patient's...

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Assisted reproduction

The study that led to this conclusion was based on a systematic analysis of 50 studies including 4,666 participants conceived using gamete donation and living in English-speaking countries. For the first time, this study looked at the long-term psychological impact of this method of conception by comparing the results with children conceived without the use of gamete donation. In particular, it identified attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), problems of dependency, mental illness...

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