The mysteries of procreation. Third parties and choices in IVF

International audienceHuman choice and interventions that could seem to threat the course of “nature” or “chance” are at the heart of controversies over assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) across Western countries. These debates focus predominately on so-called “selective reproductive technologies” (SRTs). While today the technique of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) raises few political and bioethics debates in France and other Western countries, concerns remain that human intervention might replace “natural” processes, threatening human procreation. These polemics focus on situations that require a decision, notably embryo selection and the fate of spare frozen embryos. The choices involved are at once induced by the technology and organized by the law. While this can be observed elsewhere, the French legal system is highly specific. Under French law, individual IVF patients and professionals have the possibility and, to a certain extent, the responsibility to decide on the status of in vitro embryos. This article shows that in these situations, both IVF patients and professionals invoke some form of outside agency (instances tierces), both to avoid making decisions but also to recover a world order in which procreation is not entirely subject to human decision. In short, there is a need to feel that procreation is not entirely dependent on human intervention; that individuals do not decide everything