Bioethics: the 2026 General States and prenatal selection, or state eugenics

Context

The 2026 States General on Bioethics, preparatory to the next revision of the law, include "prevention of disabilities" among their areas of work. Gènéthique alerts: under this reassuring term, the eugenic logic is outlined, from screening to medical termination of pregnancy for anomaly. In response, parents of children with trisomy say their cry: the pressure they experience during prenatal diagnoses makes them hear that their children no longer "deserve to be born".

The Facts (cross-referenced sources)

Article L2213-1 of the Public Health Code authorizes IMG until term for anomaly of particular gravity recognized as incurable. According to Santé publique France, more than 90% of pregnancies with a diagnosis of trisomy 21 are terminated. The Haute Autorité de Santé generalized the combined screening of the first trimester in 2009. The 2026 States General confirm this trajectory, without questioning its anthropological scope.

Doctrinal Analysis

The Catechism is clear: "Human life must be respected and protected in an absolute way from the moment of conception" (CCC 2270). The magisterium of Saint John Paul II explains: "Direct abortion, that is, willed as an end or as a means, constitutes a serious moral disorder" (Evangelium Vitae 62). On eugenics, the encyclical explicitly denounces "a eugenic mentality that accepts selective abortion to prevent the birth of children affected by various types of anomalies" (EV 14). The instruction Donum vitae of the CDF (1987, I,2) explicitly prohibits any prenatal diagnosis ordered, by its possible result, to an abortion.

Stakes for the Church and the Faithful

The French Catholic cannot ignore that prenatal selection is today the first cause of the near-disappearance of trisomy 21 in our country. The Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, the only institution that supports these children and their families, carries this battle for life. Léon XIV, invoking Lejeune in June 2026, recalled: the value of the person does not depend on what they achieve.

Critical Reading and Blind Spots

The States General present themselves as an "ethical" and "democratic" approach. But they structurally exclude any challenge to the presupposition that prenatal life carrying anomalies would be a diminished life. The word "prevention" serves as a semantic screen. The blind spot is the suffering of parents who have said no to IMG, marginalized in a system that no longer conceives of the handicapped child as a gift.

To Meditate and Act

Pray for mothers tempted by IMG. Support the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation. Refuse to call "prevention" what is selection. Interpellate, in the dioceses, the representatives to the States General: the Catholic voice must be present and audible there.