“At your age, you have time to meet a prince charming and have a child naturally, right? For single women, we only take files from patients over the age of 29. » This is what Clara (1), 25, heard when she showed up last February at the Cecos (centre for the study and conservation of sperm and human eggs) in her city, to begin a journey of medically assisted procreation (PMA).
→ TESTIMONY. PMA for all: “I thought I was going to miss the boat”
An age limit that does not exist in the law. “I who was confident, it was a cold shower. PMA for all is not really, in fact, “ sighs the executive assistant, whose file has since been accepted in another center.
Professionals struggling
Since the adoption of the bioethics law, in August 2021, and the effective entry into force, six months ago, of its section extending the PMA to single women or women in homosexual couples, requests have increased: 6,800 new requests for first consultation were listed by the Biomedicine Agency in 2021. In the field, it is difficult for specialists to keep pace, due to lack of time, staff and available gametes. In mid-February, the waiting time between the first appointment and the first insemination attempt was one year, on average.
PMA for all: an explosion of requests and an extension of deadlines
Consequence: testimonials indicate that to limit the flow of patients, some doctors “add criteria that are not in the law”, regrets Mikaël Agopiantz, head of department at the Nancy CHRU. Minimum age barriers, while the official texts only indicate the maximum age of patients, 45 years. But also marital status.
Anaïs and her partner, Camille, thus heard, during their first consultation, that” because ” of the new law, heterosexual couples found themselves “penalized”. “As we were, in addition, under 30 years old, the gynecologist did everything to discourage us, explaining to us that we had not matured our project enough, says the young woman. Would our candidacy therefore be worth less than the others? »
Disrepute
Many of them recount this feeling of having been “discredited”. Like Chloe (1). For this 38-year-old bachelor, originally from the West Indies, it is the skin color that causes the file to be trampled: “The Cecos in which I visited practices pairing (the fact of using a donor with physical characteristics close to the recipient, editor’s note). » Except that black donors are rare. Matching being a practice proposed by the Cecos, but not supposed to be imposed, Chloé clearly indicated that she would accept a “caucasian donor or a mestizo”. Not just. “It’s a bit discriminating,” she breathes.
→ ANALYSIS. Sperm donation: “I wanted to help couples become parents”
In reproductive medicine, however, filtering has always been done, and files are refused every day. But the criteria should be “medical, only”, Mikaël Agopiantz explains: “A PMA in a 43-year-old woman, for example, has almost zero chances of success.It is likely that his application will be refused. But a doctor does not have to judge the love life of his patients or their choice to have a child alone. Nor should he decide for the parents that a child born from a donor should look like them. »
“You have to make good choices”
“We practice medicine, we are not service providers, defends Catherine Guillemain, the president of the French Federation of Cecos. A solo parental project at age 25, when a PMA is a cumbersome process, may seem premature. To refuse is also to leave space for the patient so that, in two or three years, she will have a child without recourse to medicine. »
→ REREAD. Bioethics law: passed, the extension of the PMA promises to be delicate
In a context of tension, it is necessary to ” to make choices “, justifies another gynecologist, who notably takes into account “the interest of the unborn child, by measuring the solidity of the parental project”. Rejecting the term « discrimination »Catherine Guillemain prefers to invoke the “reality principle” and regret: “Make believe that the PMA would be accessible to all was the display. »
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A ministerial plan launched
Faced with the difficulties of implementing the new law on medically assisted procreation, the Ministry of Health published, on March 18, a ministerial plan promising to“ensure the conditions for equitable access to medically assisted procreation (MAP)”. He plans :
► Better support assisted reproduction centers to reduce waiting times, by assessing the adequacy between the resources allocated and the situations encountered.
► To monitor more closely the number of acts continuing to practice abroad.
► To update the rules of good practice, particularly in matters “attribution of gametes and embryos”. They will be fixed by decree ” In the coming months “.