2023-06-28 16:18:12
Changing the law to allow active assistance in dying in France would be a way “inappropriate and dangerous”. This is the conclusion of a report by the Senate’s Social Affairs Committee, predominantly Les Républicains (LR), submitted on Wednesday June 28 and a source of disagreement with elected officials on the left.
New illustration of the divisions about the end of life, a common position was impossible to reach between the three authors. The position of LR Corinne Imbert and Christine Bonfanti-Dossat is clear: a “oppose the opening of any form of active assistance in dying”according to the report, of which Agence France-Presse had a copy.
Like a large majority of the left, the socialist Michelle Meunier remains in favor of the possibility of both assisted suicide and euthanasia.
For Mrs Imbert and Mrs Bonfanti-Dossat, social demand is “diffuse and equivocal” et “the opening of active assistance in dying is perilous in many respects”making a legislative change “a challenge”.
Senators LR point to the complex definition of the criteria for active assistance in dying and the difficulties specific to assisted suicide (in particular the ability to self-administer the lethal product) and euthanasia (role of caregivers). They also invoke certain foreign examples to warn about “extremely difficult a posteriori supervision” or on a ” offer [qui] creates its own demand”.
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For a better application of the Claeys-Leonetti law
In France, the end-of-life situation is “certainly perfectible”, more “does not require” new law, they judge, defending better knowledge and better application of the Claeys-Leonetti law of 2016 – establishing a right to “deep and continuous sedation”. In unison with the dominant position on the right and among many caregivers, senators LR consider that “Palliative care would be able to respond to the suffering of patients and the care required at the end of life”if this law were fully effective.
Warning against a “trivialization likely to blur some fundamental social benchmarks”these elected officials invite “privileging solicitude over nihilism”.
A bill on active assistance in dying must be presented by the end of the summer by Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo, Minister Delegate in charge of Territorial Organization and Health Professions. However, the government does not seem to be unequivocal, the Minister of Health, François Braun, and that of Solidarity, Jean-Christophe Combe, having expressed reservations that the senators do not fail to raise.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Bill on the end of life: a first plot that angers caregivers
For the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (ADMD), which in 2018 submitted its own bill to its 76,000 members, active assistance in dying must take the form of a “assisted suicide” (self-administration of a lethal drug) but also of a ” euthanasia “ (administration by a third party of a lethal drug).
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“To legalize assisted suicide alone is to deprive people locked in their bodies, in a chronic vegetative state (…) of an exit door”, pleaded the president of the ADMD, Jonathan Denis, during national assizes organized Wednesday in Paris. According to Mr. Denis, the ADMD bill “feeds on foreign legislation that works well”. This model is “a law of humanity and solidarity, which will not entail any obligation for anyone, including for caregivers thanks to a conscience clause”he added.
Also read the forum: Article reserved for our subscribers End of life: “The alternative is between two deaths, one, chosen, in peace; the other, undergone, in torture”
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