This is the report of a group of clerics, physicians, biologists and demographers, presenting considerations and recommendations for reform of the French anti-abortion laws of 1920 and 1940. Abortion may be considered necessary for failure of contraception, for psychosocial, environmental, demographic, or medical indications, and for changes in cultural mores, such as increasing dissociation of sexuality from fertility, and increasing freedom and responsibility in childbearing. To modify the law is to accept some risks, but some of these risks are debatable. For example, abortion will probably not reduce the desire for children, devalue the culture of the land, disgrace women, or kill human beings, in the complete sense, since the fetus develops continuously. Thus, abortion cannot be another method of contraception, or a private affair: it must consider the humanity of the child, to which he is entitled, as well as his natural life. To attain a new political view of abortion, abortion must be removed from the clandestine and the dramatic; the candidate must be helped materially and humanely, and society must be educated for responsibility. The group recommends that councils be formed of 2 physicians, a social worker, a marriage counselor, and a welfare representative, to investigate each case, with the women and husband or father present. After 8 days, the council could recommend or refuse abortion. The first abortion only might be permitted over the council's veto, or reimbursed by public funds. No abortions should be performed after 12 weeks gestation, except in cases of embryopathy or possible maternal death, and abortions outside of the council's approval would be illegal.