Crossing borders to have a child: Case study of French nationals seeking ART in four European countries

In Europe, there are legal and medical disparities regarding assisted reproductive technologies (ART) which lead to cross-border fertility care. This new social and medical phenomenon concerns French nationals, but studies have not yet enabled us to estimate their number, to identify their sociodemographic characteristics or to understand their histories and motivations. The main purpose here is to present, through a case study based on interviews and self-administrated questionnaires, the first empirical evidence on this (new) phenomenon involving French residents, in four selected European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Greece and Spain): Who are these French patients? Why do they cross borders? How do they organize/manage transnational medical care? Compare these data with other available data on use of ART in France will allow to highlight the specificity (or not) of cross-border French patients. We will conclude that the majority of them crossed borders because of their unsatisfied needs and the inadequacies of French fertility care; that cross-border fertility care is organized into transnational paths, and it relies on medical and associative networks.