Euthanasia is on the verge of normalization in France.
On September 13, the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) considered active assistance in dying possible, but strictly supervised: for people “suffering from serious and incurable illnesses, causing physical or untreatable psychological problems” and whose vital prognosis “is committed to the medium term,” specifies the opinion.
In the wake of the opinion issued by the CCNE, the President of the Republic announced the launch of wide public consultation on the end of life, with a view to a possible new “legal framework” by the end of 2023 .
The mechanics are therefore well oiled: next October, a “citizen’s convention” will be set up by the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE). It will have to deliver its results in March 2023.
At the same time, forums will also be organized at the regional level “in order to reach out to all citizens and allow them to be informed and to measure the issues relating to the end of life,” the Elysée Palace specified, in order to create an illusion of democracy.
Because the last word will go to the parliamentarians with whom the government wishes “to consider, if necessary, the details and developments of our legal framework by the end of 2023,” details the host of rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.
The president of the National Rally parliamentary group has already expressed her opposition to any change in the legislative framework in this area.
Indeed, since the enactment of a 2002 law completed, in 2005, by the first Leonetti law, a patient who so wishes can request the limitation or the cessation of his treatments. The 2016 law adds to this possibility the establishment of deep and continuous sedation until death; it alters the consciousness to induce a “sleep” before dying.
Insufficient according to supporters of euthanasia for whom “French law governing the end of life suffers … from flaws and major shortcomings,” as explained by Line Renaud and MP Olivier Falorni – rapporteur for the bill on the “end of life” – in a signed column, on August 21, in Le Journal du Dimanche, calling for the legalization of active assistance in dying.
By paving the way for the decriminalization of euthanasia under certain conditions, in the name of “progress” in medicine and “social change,” the National Ethics Advisory Committee is sending the positive signal that the Head of State needed in order to fulfill one of his campaign promises.
