MARSEILLE, France (CN) — The French parliament is debating a controversial new ‘aid in dying’ bill that would give some chronically ill people the choice to end their lives.
French President Emmanuel Macron wants to push through this key reform in his second term. And though public support for the measure is generally high, the topic remains divisive.
Some experts advocate for the right to die with dignity, but critics argue that the measure shows the shortcomings of an expensive health care system that doesn't offer people enough quality-of-life support.
“We in Western countries are faced with a demographic problem,” Jacques Ricot, a philosophy researcher at the University of Nantes, told Courthouse News. “We realize that the end of life is quite expensive, and so without it being at all the stated intention, there is still a coincidence and even a correlation between problems of organization of the health system and end-of-life management.”
In France, the debate has raged for decades.
The Association for the Right to Die with Dignity was created in 1980 and still advocates for exactly what the name suggests. Philippe Lohéac is a general delegate with the association. In his view, respect for freedom should encompass people’s wish to end their life if they are terminally ill.
“We’re speaking here to people who have reached the end of their life and are going to die,” Lohéac told Courthouse News. “The idea is, can they? They can become masters of their time, of the end of their life, and decide when and how, or continue to endure decisions that are not theirs.”
The bill lays out very specific circumstances for a person to be able to make the decision. There’s a clear distinction between these — which would apply to people living with a terminal illness, in chronic pain, over the age of 18 — and the question of assisted suicide, which is not on the table. People with conditions like Alzheimer’s would not be eligible.
A patient would have to request the procedure. A team of medical experts would have to confirm that the patient's illness is incurable and that they're in extreme pain. If the team approved the request, a doctor would write a prescription for a lethal substance valid for three months. The patient could take the drug at home, in a nursing home or in a health care facility.
“It’s at the end of life, it’s not active assistance in dying,” Lohéac said. “Dignity at the end of life is being respected, to remain in control of your journey — because we are full citizens, even when sick, even when tired, even when elderly.
“There is no reason why the end-of-life journey should exclude this right to self-determination,” he added. “So this dignity is the respect of individual liberties.”
Some of the measure's main opposition groups include religious organizations. France is a predominantly Catholic country, and Catholic institutions have unsurprisingly advocated against the measure.
Ricot has specialized in end-of-life philosophy for over 30 years. He believes that religion and politics should be left out of the philosophical debate.
“I only speak with my reason when I address such delicate or complicated subjects, because I refuse to limit the debate between religious, non-religious and right and left politics,” he said. “I consider that religious or anti-religious must be carefully put aside, otherwise we completely confuse the debate.”
From his experience with health care workers who deal with dying patients daily, Ricot thinks that people who receive quality care don’t want to end their lives. It’s more of a fear of “dying badly” that could prompt people to make that decision.
“It’s not by chance that there’s a confluence between a demographic problem and questions which arise about hospital resources, which are, in France, in great tension and imbalance,” he said.
Ricot also points to a “galloping conception of freedom which no longer knows how to set limits.” In his view, there’s a contradiction in the freedom debate.
Though the measure advocates for individual liberty, a caregiver would have to carry out the procedure — making what is perceived as an individual decision a joint one in practice. Medical personnel have been less favorable to the measures than the general public.
Recent polls show that over 90% of French people support some form of an assisted dying law. The Institut français d’opinion publique, an international polling research firm, found that around 75% of people deemed these types of measures “necessary.”
Lohéac said: “They are not against it at all, no matter their level of study, whatever their age, whatever their political orientation, whatever their religious practice. The French are very favorable.”
He stressed that the measure would merely provide people an option.
“We must listen to all of the population, whoever it may be, and offer this new right, which — like any right — is not an obligation,” he said. “When we allow women to abort, we are not forcing them to abort.”
Other countries in Europe — notably Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland — already have similar laws in place. The U.K. has been debating a similar law.
On June 11, the lower house of parliament will vote on the measure after two weeks of discussion. If lawmakers pass the bill, it will go to the Senate for the next rounds of debates. Bringing the bill into law would take about a year.
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