On 27 January, the French Court of Appeals of Angers ruled that custody of an infant born under the country’s anonymous childbirth law should go to its maternal grandparents against the mother’s wishes, overturning the provisions stipulated by the controversial legislation known as "accouchement sous X" (childbirth under X) which allows for any woman to give birth under complete anonymity.
This court ruling follows a recent report that Brigitte Barèges, a member of parliament for the ruling UMP party, submitted to the prime minister urging that anonymous delivery be replaced with a system that would oblige a woman to reveal her identity at birth so that anonymous babies can get to know where they came from once they have attained majority.
The Sous X law is still at the centre of a controversy that has gone as far as the European Court of Human Rights, as those "born under the X" seek to claim their identities.
In an earlier press release, IPPF Member Association of France, MFPF warned about the Barèges report, that it could represent a threat for the protection of the mother over the rights of children.
The system of anonymous births in France is embodied in the laws of January 1993 and July 1996, as well as the law of 22 January 2002 on "Access by Adopted Persons and People in State Care to Information about their Origins" which allows arrangements to be made for disclosure of identity subject to the mother's and child's express consent being obtained.
If the system changes, MFPF is concerned that the country may have to face certain extreme measures such as the so-called baby boxes, in Germany, where mothers can drop off their babies anonymously or situations where women give birth in clandestinity, leaving women and children with serious health problems.
According to MFPF, the country’s current controversy over the anonymous childbirth law is also part of a larger debate on the revision of the bioethics law, where the general trend seems to grant more importance to the biological connection rather than to the social, emotional one.