The Citizen’s agreement on end of life has been meeting since September 2022 to decide on the legalization – or not – of euthanasia or assisted suicide. The conclusions were delivered on Sunday April 2, 2023. The citizens’ convention confirmed its position in favor of legalizing euthanasiaunder certain conditions of course.
“For a majority of citizens of the convention, access to active assistance in dying must be opened”, indicates the final report of the citizens’ convention. In total, 184 citizens were brought together in this Convention. They were called upon to give an opinion on a possible evolution of the Claeys-Leonetti law of 2016. This text allows caregivers to put under irreversible sedation of patients near deathwhose case is hopeless and the suffering intolerable.
However, this text does not go so far as to authorize a “active assistance in dying”that is to say an assisted suicide or an act of euthanasia.
The current end-of-life framework is currently not suitable
Nearly 200 citizens were drawn from among volunteers aged 18 to 87 to set up this Convention. They participated in several weekends of intense debates, and were brought to listen to different speakers, namely religious, caregivers, associations…
The French gathered within the framework of this Convention have in the majority considered that the current end-of-life framework was not appropriate. They also underline the concrete difficulties of access to an adequate supply of palliative care. As such, the Convention emphasizes the “alarming situation” of the French health system.
Emmanuel Macron in favor of a bill “by the end of the summer”
The debates lasted three months. This Monday, April 3, the members of the citizens’ convention met Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée for an act II. At the end of the meeting, the Head of State spokein favor of a bill “by the end of the summer”. “You have worked with rigor and with a respect, a consideration for each other, remarkable”, he recognized, believing that their work allowed “an additional step towards consensus”.
“We need to build a ten-year national plan for the management of pain and the development of palliative care, with the necessary investments”, he declared, acknowledging that the French support system for the end of life was “ill-suited” to current requirements.
The Convention established a long list of recommendations which will aim to develop palliative care and facilitate access to it.
The Order of Physicians considers this subject “extremely sensitive”
If the Head of State is in favor of this bill, this is not the case for the National Council of the Order of Physicians nowadays.
Invited by France Info on Sunday April 2, Jean-Marcel Mourgues, vice-president of the National Council of the Order of Physicians judges the subject of the end of life “extremely sensitiveHowever, according to the latter, “there is consensus on two points, in particular among associations in favor of an evolution of the law”: the specific conscience clause and the provision of means “for a real application” of the law Claeys-Leonetti, or “continuous sedation at a terminal stage of the disease”.
