Medically assisted procreation, prenatal diagnostic, organ transplants, genetic testing : all are part of the spectacular progress characteristic of scientific and medical research in the last few years. These new techniques confront us with totally new situations and oblige us to take responsabilities and make difficult choices. Should we do these things just because we can ? Who should decide what to do and on what criteria ? The individual or society ? Doctors or politicians ? This book invites us into a stimulating and incisive thought process concerning the future of medicine. With his original experience as a genetic scientist, Jean-François Mattei analyses the events that have made the headlines as well as parliamentary debates : the very basis of bioethics. We must, according to the author, redefine the principles upon which our society must be based and ask ourselves multiple questions concerning our values and our common references : what kind of man and what kind of society do we want to become in the future ? The immense scope of the problems inherent to this new medicine implies a shake-up in politics and that decisions be made in the interest of all.