[Refusal of transfusion: What is the right place for the principle of respect for autonomy?].

Nineteen people refusing a blood transfusion in anticipation of thoracic surgery were met at the Clinical Ethics Center (AP-HP, Paris, France). The article reflects on the right place that respect for autonomy plays in medical decisions regarding (non)transfusion when medical practice would recommend it. Three patient profiles emerge: "categorical refusals", "refusals while affirming the need to live" and "refusals accompanied by doubt".

[Are advance directives useful for doctors and what for?].

Objectives: In France, the law has introduced the possibility to write advance directives since 2005. In this paper, we will present the results of a study designed for checking how much people over 75 years are interested by this new tool.

Methods: The inquiry consisted in deep qualitative interviews (around 45') to further understand what people included in the study have to say about advance directives, but also about the conditions of ageing and dying.

Law, bioethics and practice in France: forging a new legislative pact.

In France, bioethics norms have emerged in close interaction with medical practices. The first bioethics laws were adopted in 1994, with provisions for updates in 2004 and most recently, in 2011. As in other countries, bioethics laws indirectly refer to certain fundamental values.

Access to assisted reproductive technologies in France: the emergence of the patients' voice.

Is there any ethical justification for limiting the reproductive autonomy and not make assisted reproductive technologies available to certain prospective parents? We present and discuss the results of an interdisciplinary clinical ethics study concerning access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in situations which are considered as ethically problematic in France (overage or sick parents, surrogate motherhood). The study focused on the arguments that people in these situations put forward when requesting access to ART. It shows that requester's arguments are based on sound ethical values, and that their legitimacy is at least as strong as that of those used by doctors to question access to ART.