The question of the end of life, even in particular the creation of a “right to help die”, returned to the hemicycle of the National Assembly on Monday, May 12, many deputies who formulate the desire for decent and peaceful debates, which makes it possible to lead to a balance text on an intimate issue.
The president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, promised to open the debates to ensure that they remain “as respectful as possible.”
The deputies will discuss two weeks during, including on weekends, if necessary, two proposals of laws, with one over palliative care, and the other to help die. A solemn vote for each is scheduled for May 27.
Personal experiences of deputies
“Yes, there is even worse than death, when life has only become an inexorable agony,” said Elator of the second text Olivier Falorni (modern group), defending the need to help die as “final appeal.”
Component moving debates, some deputies shared their personal experience. “Like many of you, I have known irreversible degradation in my own family, maintaining life without consent, with pain,” said Deputy Karen Erodi.
Consensual, the first bill establishes in particular the creation of an “opposite right” to palliative care, while according to a report by the July 2023 Court, only half of the needs was provided.
More divisive, the second was approved by 28 deputies against 15 in the committee. In the session, all groups should give their members the freedom to vote.
Elected officials will first have to examine more than 3,000 amendments, including many of the UDR, the Eric Ciotti Allied Group of the RN. If LFI denounced an attempt to “obstruction” of the extreme right, Yaël Braun-Pivet refuted the term, judging that the order of magnitude was the same during the debates in 2024.
The divided government
After committing in 2022 to trust a reflection on the subject to a citizen convention, Emmanuel Macron had presented in March 2024 the main lines of a bill, whose examination had been interrupted by the dissolution.
Subject to a strong pressure from the deputies, Prime Minister François Bayrou put the work in the profession, writing the bill in two, to leave freedom to deputies to vote for one text but not for the other.
Last Monday, Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed his commitment to this social development, believing that the debate could not “be reduced” against life, but had to make the question of “minor evil.”
However, the government divides on the subject, and Interior Minister Bruno Retilleau (LR) is a fierce opponent.
Catherine Vautrin defends a “clear frame”
If it transcends political divisions, the creation of an aid to die, another name of assisted suicide and euthanasia, is combined by a large part of the right and the extreme right.
“Can the State participate in the death of a third party, even for the simple authorization of a device? Personally I do not believe it. The impossibility of killing is an absolute principle,” said Deputy Lr Philippe Juvin, a doctor by profession, worried that the text “opens the euthanasia to people who potentially have several years to live.”
“This law will authorize the use of the right to die without losing this exceptional character and without encouraging it,” said Socialist Deputy Director Océane Godard.
The Minister of Health, Catherine Vautrin, asked in the hemicycle that defines, for helping, “a clear frame with non -negotiable principles and lines that should not be crossed.” “This is the honor of Parliament to take the most serious and overwhelming themes and find the balance point,” he added.
The question of the criteria for the opening of access to this new law will be debated particularly, as well as that of the “safeguards” that supervix the procedure, the collegiality of the authorization decision, or even the priority or not to the self -administered administration of the lethal substance.
The text of Olivier Falorni now establishes that the patient “suffers from a serious and incurable condition, whatever the cause, which involves the vital prognosis, in the advanced or terminal phase.”
The high health authority defined on Tuesday in an opinion the “advanced phase” as “entry into an irreversible process marked by the worsening of the state of health that affects the quality of life.” A definition that the Government intends to resume in an amendment.
Source: BFM TV
