While the citizens’ convention on the end of life, wanted by Emmanuel Macron, is nearing the end of its work, postponed from March 19 to April 2, no one yet knows what decision the Head of State will take. But he was able to realize it: for caregivers, on the front line, the possibility of decriminalizing assisted suicide and especially euthanasia remains, for many, a stumbling block.
The debate crystallizes around one question: the« active aid in dying” can it, or not, be considered as care? In other words, can it be part, without deviation, of the mission of caregivers?
In mid-February, a dozen associations and organizations representing some 800,000 caregivers, led by the French Society for Support and Palliative Care (SFAP), replied with a firm no, in a avis taken up in “one” of Figarowhere is denounced and “major ethical shift”. The opposite position was supported in a tribune at Monde by some 500 caregivers, doctors, nurses, caregivers and psychologists, on the initiative of the Association for the right to die with dignity (ADMD), all of whom are committed to active assistance in dying “within a strictly legal and supervised framework”.
“Last Request”
The debate has been bouncing back for years, fed by two opposing camps, very organized, without it being really possible to know what the “silent mass” caregivers, even if the reluctance and concerns expressed have resonated strongly in recent weeks.
The adoption, in September 2022, by the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) of an opinion paving the way, with great caution, to a modification of the legal framework, relaunched the questions. What actions would health professionals have to assume in practice with a new law? How would this affect the relationship between caregivers and patients, in palliative care services and beyond (oncology, geriatrics, etc.), wherever people at the end of life are cared for? Who among the practitioners would invoke the “conscience clause”? Who, conversely, would consider it their duty to respond to this “final request” ?
The French Society for Support and Palliative Care surveyed its troops, carers and volunteers: 90% of the 1,300 people questioned in a survey conducted with opinionwayin September 2022, approve the current legal framework – that of the Claeys-Leonetti law which, since 2016, authorizes a “deep and continuous sedation until death”. Almost as many (85%) say they are against the idea of intentionally causing death.
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