A regulation on assisted dying and end-of-life measures will probably be mentioned earlier than summer time, newly appointed French well being minister Catherine Vautrin instructed MPs on Wednesday (14 February).
The long-awaited regulation on the top of life in France will probably be mentioned by “the top of spring and possibly in the summertime”, Vautrin stated throughout the federal government query session on the Nationwide Meeting on Wednesday.
“Consultations are nonetheless going down. Each with professionals and representatives of various faculties of thought. We’re additionally working with elected representatives and Parliament,” she added.
The topic of the top of life is a long-standing debate in France, as French President Emmanuel Macron promised that the federal government would legislate on a brand new venture of regulation earlier than the top of summer time 2023. At present, all actively assisted end-of-life measures are banned in Frace.
In September 2022, Macron established a residents’ conference, made up of 184 individuals drawn at random, to debate the difficulty. In response to the conclusions of the ultimate report, 97% of residents felt that the present “assist framework” ought to “evolve” in France.
The primary motive is “inequality of entry to assist on the finish of life”, and the second is “the shortage of passable responses throughout the present framework for sure end-of-life conditions”.
Greater than a 12 months and a half later, there was little progress on the difficulty.
On the finish of January, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal stated {that a} invoice introducing energetic help in dying can be examined earlier than the summer time. Attal additionally added that palliative care will probably be “significantly strengthened”, however with out specifying a deadline.
“In the present day, our compatriots are clearly calling on us to assessment our regulation. It’s a request from households, from sufferers, it’s a severe request to which we should reply. We are going to reply,” he stated.
On 8 February Macron himself admitted that the topic was “intimidating”, as he obtained representatives of spiritual denominations, in addition to medical doctors and philosophers, to debate the longer term regulation on the Elysée Palace.
However for sufferers’ associations, it’s time for motion: 90% of French individuals are in favour of recourse to euthanasia, in accordance with an IFOP ballot, the French opinion and advertising and marketing analysis institute, revealed in June.
“Nothing ought to cease the President of the Republic – not from deciding – however from submitting a good and balanced end-of-life regulation to the French parliamentarians,” the Affiliation for the Proper to Die with Dignity (ADMD) stated in a press launch.
Extended sedation versus energetic euthanasia
In France, the 2016 Claeys-Leonetti regulation authorises “extended and steady sedation”, for sufferers with an imminently terminal situation.
Nonetheless, in contrast to different nations in Europe, the regulation doesn’t authorise energetic help in dying, equivalent to euthanasia or assisted suicide. Energetic euthanasia is authorised in Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Different nations enable different options equivalent to assisted suicide, like Austria, Germany and Italy, or passive euthanasia, like Greece, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia.
Within the first case, the affected person injects the deadly dose himself, whereas within the second, medical doctors chorus from prolonging care and therapy. Switzerland permits each assisted suicide and passive euthanasia.
In 2022, 61 sufferers residing overseas got here to Belgium to profit from euthanasia, in accordance with figures from Belgium’s Fee fédérale de Contrôle et d’Évaluation de l’Euthanasie (CFCEE). Of those 61 sufferers, 53 have been French.
“It’s as much as every nation to legislate on the topic. I doubt that it is a reform that may be imposed on a European scale. In France, Emmanuel Macron is prepared,” Olivier Falorni, MP (MoDem et Indépendants), who’s behind a 2021 invoice on the top of life, instructed Euractiv in a earlier interview.
“Every nation has its personal historical past and traditions, though I hope that each one European residents will ultimately have entry to the proper to die with dignity,” he stated.
The French Nationwide Consultative Ethics Committee, since September 2022, and the Nationwide Academy of Drugs, since July 2023, have each recognised that France ought to transfer ahead on end-of-life measures.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
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