In France, it is allowed to put the sick to sleep with strong drugs so that they don’t feel pain, but it is illegal to end their lives.
On Thursday, the French parliament will debate a bill legalizing euthanasia. The debate is likely to last more than a day: opponents of legalization have written three thousand amendments to the bill.
If the bill is passed, France will become the fifth country in the European Union to decriminalize voluntary assistance in dying, after the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain. The authors of the bill believe that legalizing euthanasia will put an end to “national hypocrisy” because, as they say, terminally ill French citizens currently simply go to Belgium or Switzerland to voluntarily end their lives, while doctors in France secretly perform two to four euthanasia cases a year. In Switzerland, doctors or relatives cannot help a patient end his or her life, but the person can take a lethal dose of medication.
In March 2021, Spain will grant adult terminally ill patients the right to voluntary euthanasia. The bill was introduced by Olivier Falorni, a member of the non-parliamentary group Libertés et Territoires. He and his colleagues say the document raises existential questions that should not be hidden but addressed, and that the attempt to delay its adoption with thousands of amendments is shameful.
The deputies who authored most of the amendments belong to the right-wing opposition party Les Republicains. They argue that such an important issue cannot be resolved by a single vote in Parliament and call for national debates. French President Emmanuel Macron and his government have yet to take a position, although Macron publicly stated in 2017: “I want to choose the end of my life myself.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has not publicly stated whether he supports the legalization of euthanasia.
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The current law allows the use of strong painkillers and sedatives for patients suffering from terminal illnesses. Such patients are put into a deep medicated sleep so that they feel no pain, but neither relatives nor the patients themselves can decide to end their lives.
Like the deputies, French society is divided over the legalization of euthanasia. Some, like the famous 92-year-old actress Line Renaud, are calling on Parliament to allow every woman and man to choose the end of their lives. Others, like the famous writer Michel Houellebecq, believe that a society that legalizes euthanasia loses any right to respect. “The agony before death is an important experience in the life of every human being. To interrupt it artificially is an outright crime,” the writer said in a column published in Le Figaro, suggesting that morphine be used to ease the suffering of the sick.
The Catholic Church holds the same position and is categorically opposed to euthanasia. “When a person faces suffering, we should not kill him, but rather try to prolong his life and alleviate his pain,” says Archbishop Michel Aupeti of Paris.
The debate on the need to legalize euthanasia resurfaced in France last year. At the time, terminally ill Frenchman Alain Coc approached President Macron with a request to allow doctors to provide him with medication to end his life. Macron replied that what he was asking for was illegal. In protest, Kok planned to starve himself and refuse painkillers, broadcasting his suffering live on social media. However, his pain was so intense that he was unable to do so.
If the bill is not discussed on Thursday, some deputies propose to return to the discussion of this issue during the presidential elections next year.
Note. On January 11, 2022 an amendment was made to the article: the procedure for various forms of euthanasia in European countries was clarified.