Next to 23,000 first requests for medically assisted procreation (or PMA) from couples of women or single women were identified at the end of 2022, announced on March 8 theBiomedicine Agency. Voted in August 2021 and coming into force the following month, the new law allows lesbian couples and single women to access assisted reproduction: it was previously reserved for heterosexual couples suffering from fertility disorders or wishing to avoid transmission. of a serious illness.
In March 2022, 6,800 requests for first consultations from single women and female couples had been recorded. “We were surprised by the scale of the requests and now we are going to enter a normalization process”, Claire de Vienne, referring doctor for the Biomedicine Agency, told AFP. In detail, between August 2021 and the end of December 2022, 11,800 first consultations were carried out, including 4,200 for the benefit of couples of women or unmarried women. As of December 31, 2022, nearly 5,600 people were waiting, including 36% female couples and 38% unmarried women, i.e. 74% of people on the waiting list corresponding to new audiences covered by the new legislation.
But if these figures represent a “good start” for the Biomedicine Agency, the opinion is not shared by patient associations. In question ? Of the particularly long delays forcing some women to go for insemination in Spain or Belgium, delays in care or even the lack of care centers in the country: there are only about thirty of them in France, even though they are the only to which women can turn.
“The French centers are increasing their consultation capacity, the teams have been reinforced […]. Everything is going in the direction of improvement. The situation for these women must improve.”, replies the doctor Claire de Vienne. Three centers have just been approved (Limoges, Orléans and Poitiers) and “others should still be” in the coming months.
21 births since August 2021
Others regret that too few babies are born : according to data from the Biomedicine Agency, 21 babies born to female couples and single women have been born since the adoption of the law in 2021. But why so few babies? A PMA course is relatively long and “takes time“, according to Claire de Vienne: the time between the first phone call and the first attempt can stretch to more than 14.4 months according to the Biomedicine Agency. And again, the first attempt must work…
But within a few months, the number of births could even exceed a hundred, hopes Claire de Vienne, in particular thanks to the increase in the number of first consultations. “Between the first and second half of 2022, it was multiplied by three and a half”she tells the Parisian.
A call for gamete donations
“All these projects are only possible if there are men who give”, recalls Claire de Vienne. THE stocks of gametes are unfortunately insufficienthence the need in the coming months to build up stocks, insists the Biomedicine Agency.
Even if gamete donations continue to increase after breaking a new record in 2021, more is needed. 764 sperm donors were identified in 2022 compared to 600 men in 2021.
Source :
- International Women’s Rights Day: the Agence de la biomédecine presents the latest developments in the implementation of the law opening access to assisted reproduction for all, Agence de la biomédecine, March 8, 2023
