ABSTRACT
Assisted conception was regulated in detail for the first time by Act No. 94–654 of July 29 1994 relating to the gift and use of elements and products of the human body, to medically assisted procreation and to prenatal diagnosis. This chapter summarizes the main features of French law, deriving from the Act of 1994. Assisted conception is established in order to answer to the parental wish of a couple formed by a man and a woman. As a consequence, it is illegal and a criminal offence to provide Medical Assistance to Procreation (AMP) to a homosexual couple or to a single person. The Act provides for only two AMP indications, which confirm the previous practice: Infertility of the couple, which must have a pathological origin and must have been medically diagnosed; and risk of transmission of a disease "of a particular gravity" to the child.
