The French People Say “Yes” to Playing God through the Medium of Bioethics

The survey, conducted from December 8 to 11, 2017, on “a statistical sample of the French population” of 1,010 people, was published by La Croix in its January 3, 2018 issue. It reveals that 71% of the French hope for a law on euthanasia, and 24% for a law on assisted suicide.

64% of the participants also said they are in favour of surrogacy and 60% in favour of Medically Assisted Procreation (MAP) for “unions between persons of the same sex.” Another impressive number: 80% say they are for the manipulation and even destruction of human embryos for medical purposes.

In substance, this alarming evolution shows the triumph of individualism, explains Pierre Le Coz, a philosopher and professor for the faculty of medicine of the University of Aix-Marseille. He explains:

with the Enlightenment, we have little by little left traditional society, founded on the repetition of the past, behind” and replaced it with “the social contract formalized by Rousseau in 1762; since then, authority no longer comes from our elders or from the wise or from religion, but from man, builder of his own existence.

This analysis recalls that of Pope St. Pius X over one-hundred years ago, at the dawn of his pontificate, in his letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church. He revealed

the disastrous state of human society today. For who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction? You understand, Venerable Brethren, what this disease is - apostasy from God.

(Encyclical E Supremi Apostolatus, On the Restoration of All Things in Christ, October 4, 1903)