Thierry Harvey

Biography

Thierry Harvey is an obstetrician-gynecologist. He has been head of department at the Diaconesses maternity hospital in Paris for almost 25 years. He currently presides over Solipam (Solidarité Paris maman), an association and network providing care for pregnant women in extremely precarious situations in √éle-de-France. Thierry is particularly committed to defending women, the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) and medically assisted procreation (MAP). The well-being and respect of human beings are at the heart of his concerns.

Conference: Can we change the timing of pregnancy?

9 months is both long and short. Is the time from conception to birth set in stone? In the Napoleonic code of 1804, a child was potentially viable at 6 months. Since then, times have changed… or not. Pregnancy still lasts 9 months for the French and 40 weeks of amenorrhea for the rest of the world. Medical advances in neonatology in the 80s pushed back the threshold of viability, with the birth of live babies under 6 months, with no real status. In 1993, the World Health Organization set the viability threshold at 22 weeks of amenorrhea and a fetal weight of 500g. Utopia or reality? Is gestation time fixed, or does it vary from one woman to the next, from one pregnancy to the next, from one fetus to the next? Can or should we try to shorten it? And for whose benefit? So many questions at the heart of the health of future generations.