PIP: The experience acquired in the 5 years since the legalization of abortion in France in 1975, allows an evaluation of the present situation. The French Academy of Medicine has always assumed a pronatalist position, and was instrumental in having the clause about consciencious objection passed into the law. A beneficial result of the law was an improvement in the technical conditions in which abortions took place, and a decrease in the incidence of illegal abortions. Negative results were the degradation of the notion of human life, the equation of a situation of distress with a situation of pure convenience, and a negative influence on the demographic situation of the country. Moreover, the 10 days' interval required by law between demand for abortion and the intervention itself, which was intended to provoke some serious reflection in a woman, is very often not respected, and the woman is straightforwardly encouraged to undergo abortion. The law legalizing abortion in France should be kept, but with serious modifications of a social, juridical, political, and material order.