The life sciences and human rights: radical and uncontrolled change, or legislation French style. Senator Franck Sérusclat is a parliamentarian closely involved with one of the subjects causing most concern to French society: bioethics. In a voluminous report (two volumes with over a thousand pages) he provides parliamentarians with the results of all the discussions noted during 350 hours of interviews in 1991, in eight countries, and the documents he has collected on medically-assisted human reproduction, genetics and prenatal diagnostics, the status of the human body and end-of-life considerations. This report was used to prepare the parliamentary debate on bioethics and remains a reference document in many conferences and meetings organised on this topic.