Paris (AFP)

Opponents of the opening of medically assisted procreation (PMA) to lesbians and single women call to demonstrate again Sunday in Paris to demand the withdrawal of the bioethics bill, examined from Tuesday by the Senate.

A week after the adoption of the bill by the Senate in committee, which did not question the essence of the text already voted by the National Assembly, a group of 22 associations, including La Manif pour tous, calls to gather on Sunday from 1 p.m., Place de la Résistance in Paris, under the banner "Marchons Enfants!".

During the previous mobilization, on October 6, some 74,500 people had paraded in the capital, according to a count made by the cabinet Occurrence for a media collective, including AFP.

"What happened in the Senate motivates us even more to mobilize against this bill which no longer deserves to be called bioethics," said Caroline Roux, deputy general delegate of Alliance Vita, an anti-abortion association. , at a press conference.

She denounces an ultraliberalism "which goes ever further". "There is a headlong rush towards the whole PMA. It is not simply the question of reimbursement, there is a red line which has been crossed by allowing it outside the criteria of infertility", she continued .

Archbishop of Paris Mgr Michel Aupetit lambasted in a statement on Wednesday that "inflicting voluntarily (the absence of a father)" is "monstrous".

The associations also pointed to the government's "always cause method". They regret that what they proposed during the States General of Bioethics organized in 2018 was not taken into account in the bill. "And for the past few weeks, there has been silence," they say.

So stay on the street. Despite the disturbances at SNCF, the president of Manif pour tous Ludovine de la Rochère wants to be "optimistic" about the mobilization to come. "I think it will be a very important event with an audience very aware of the issues behind the bioethics law," she told AFP.

Despite the first reading examination scheduled for Tuesday in the Senate, the associations remain hopeful. "The day after the demonstration of February 2, 2014, had been withdrawn the family bill of Minister Dominique Bertinotti", which had given up on including PMA for all, recalled Ludovine de la Rochère.

"Basically it is a question of courage in politics and personal convictions. No color or belonging to such a party", launched Bertrand Lionel-Marie, Catholic Family Associations (AFC), which asks parliamentarians to go against "the spirit of the times".

The collective does not exclude other demonstrations "in the coming weeks", in the event of the status quo of the text and "non-opening of a dialogue".

© 2020 AFP