[Assisted procreation: ethics and passions]

In vitro fertilization has become a subject of major ethical debate filled with passion and for two main reasons: On the one hand, it has posed in a very clear way the problem of the status of the human embryo, a problem intrinsically related to the debate on the voluntary termination of pregnancy. On the other hand, it looks again at the debate on access to these techniques, to the legitimacy of the desire for a child and to debate on the new families and from there, questions sexuality, life and death, subjects of fundamental existence. The authors analyses the phenomenon, develops a lay approach to embryo status and from there defends a vision of freedom of access to assisted procreation.