Should medically assisted procreation (PMA) be open to transgender men, recognized as such in civil status but still endowed with a uterus? The Constitutional Council, seized by the Council of State of a priority question of constitutionality, must decide this Friday, July 8.
“An attack on the principle of equality”
Since August 2021, the PMA is open to all women, couple or single. But not to men. This difference in treatment undermines the principle of equality between women and men
estimated, during the hearing before the Elders, Tuesday, June 28, Me Magali Lhotel, lawyer for the Group for information and action on reproductive and sexual issues (Giaps)at the origin of the action. However, there are men in the civil state who have a uterus
she continued, stressing that it was up to doctors, not legislators, to say who is or is not able to carry a pregnancy
.
Furthermore, since 2016, transgender people are no longer required to undergo sterilization to obtain a sex change at civil status
, argued the lawyer. Which amounts to saying, according to her, that the legislator has admitted that men can carry a pregnancy
. A possible approach without PMA if they are in a relationship with a man.
“A new sexual category”
But for the representative of the government, Antoine Pavageau, to grant the request of Giaps would amount to recognize a new sexual category, male for civil status and female for access to PMA
. Yet binarity is necessary for the social and legal order
he says, because she ensures the maintenance of the rights of individuals
. He believes that the differential treatment of transgender men is justified because it is attached not to biological sex, but to civil status
.
The subject had already been raised, during the debates in the Assembly on the bioethics bill, relating to PMA for all. In November, Spain has extended access to assisted reproduction “to transsexual people who are pregnant”.
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