PMA: requests are exploding, but times are getting longer

PMA was more than necessary, as new data from the Agency for Biomedicine shows. Two years after the promulgation of the law on bioethics in August 2021, which opened the procedure to lesbian couples and single women, requests for first consultations have increased.

They increased by 25% between the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023, i.e 7,216 requests Furthermore. At the end of June, almost 30,000 requests had been formulated since the bioethics law came into force.

Long delays for lesbian couples

For female couples the distribution is “ fair enough »: 29% are between 25 and 29 years old, 29% are between 30 and 34 years old, while 24% are between 35 and 39 years old.

Among single women, more than half of applicants are between the ages of 35 and 39, while 7% are between 18 and 29, 18% are between 30 and 34, and 18% are between 40 and 45.

For heterosexual couples, the majority of applicants, or 67%, are between 30 and 39 years old.

Read also: Eight months after the promulgation of the PMA, difficulties are accumulating female couples

Sperm donation stable but insufficient to meet requests

But in the face of this explosion of requests, one problem remains: the average processing time is getting longer. Between the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023 the period will go from 14.4 to 15.8 months per request with sperm donation and from 23 to 23.8 months for egg donation. Delays that especially affect lesbian couples, given that among the 5,400 applicants waiting, 41.1% are female couples.

The number of candidates for sperm donation, which amounts to around 600, remains stable, but is not sufficient to satisfy requests. While the number of candidates for egg donation is increasing slightly, from 495 in the previous semester, to 506 women in the first half of 2023.