France's government has presented a controversial bill on assisted dying that would allow terminally ill patients to take lethal medication, as public demands grow for legal options for aid in dying.
French people seeking to end their lives are travelling to neighbouring countries, such as Belgium or Switzerland, where medically assisted suicide is legal.
In early March, President Emmanuel Macron announced that a “French-style” bill was in the pipeline, with strict conditions for accessing aid in dying, though he refrained from using the terms assisted suicide or euthanasia.
Sketching out the contours of the future law on Wednesday, health Minister Catherine Vautrin said it provided for the introduction of “aid in dying” under certain conditions for patients at the end of their lives who are affected by “physical or psychological suffering” as a result of their illness.
Strict conditions
To benefit from the newly proposed measure, patients would need to be over 18 and be French citizens or live in France, and the prognosis would have to be terminal in the short to medium term, Vautrin said following a Cabinet meeting.
A team of medical professionals would need to confirm that the patient has a grave and incurable illness, is suffering from intolerable and untreatable pain, and is seeking lethal medication of their own free will.
The latter condition will effectively exclude patients suffering from psychiatric conditions or neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
The patient would initiate the request for lethal medication and confirm the request following a period of reflection, Vautrin said.
If approved, a doctor would then deliver a prescription, valid for three months, for the lethal medication.
People would be able to take it at home, at a nursing home or a health care facility.
If they are unable to do so – as for people suffering from Charcot’s disease – they can appoint a third party to carry out the procedure.
Important first step
The Catholic church and some healthworkers are opposed to the bill, but the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (ADMD) said it was "a first step towards a new right at the end of life".
“This is the first time in France that a government has introduced legislation to legalise active assistance in dying," ADMD said in a statement.
However, it said it would oppose the reference to “terminal prognosis in the short or medium term” since it "effectively excludes all slowly progressing illnesses which are accompanied by significant deterioration in the advanced stages".
MPs will begin discussing the bill in May.
Vautrin urged “an enormous amount of listening, an enormous amount of humility (…) and an enormous amount of respect for freedom of conscience”.
She also announced 1.1 billion euros in new spending on palliative and other end-of-life care.
Public support
A report last year indicated that most French citizens back legalising end-of-life options, and opinion polls show growing support over the past 20 years.
A 2016 French law provides that doctors can keep terminally ill patients sedated before death but stops short of allowing assisted suicide or euthanasia.
In April 2023, the Citizens’ Convention on the End of Life, made up of 182 randomly selected citizens voted by a majority of 76 percent in favour of some form of euthanasia or assisted dying under certain conditions.
Assisted suicide is allowed in Switzerland and Portugal and several US states.
Euthanasia is currently legal in the Netherlands, Spain, Canada, Australia, Colombia, Belgium and Luxembourg under certain conditions.
(with newswires)
