Macron broadcasts a regulation to legalize euthanasia, with restrictions | EUROtoday

Per week after having inscribed the suitable to abortion within the French Constitution, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, opens one other delicate debate within the nation: that of the legalization of euthanasia. The Government will current in April a invoice to assist die in sure instances, and that, in line with the chief, there is not going to be a regulation for “assisted suicide or euthanasia as such.”

He introduced this on Sunday in an interview he gave to 2 media shops with very completely different editorial and public strains: the Catholic newspaper La Croix and the progressive newspaper Delivery. It is a controversial subject, though 70% of French persons are in favor of regulation helps her die on the finish of life in sure instances.

According to the primary particulars superior by the president, be restricted to very particular instances, solely in older individuals, who’ve clear discernment (who shouldn’t have altered schools, that’s, it excludes Alzheimer's sufferers) and who are suffering from an incurable illness with a deadly prognosis within the brief or medium time period. The individual's struggling, each bodily and psychological, may even be assessed.

Just a couple of months in the past, the French singer Françoise Hardy In a letter, he requested Emmanuel Macron to legalize euthanasia so as to “end the hell” he says he’s experiencing, because of the most cancers he suffers from. In addition to Hardy, the actor Alain Delonwho lives in Switzerland, the place euthanasia is authorized, mentioned in an interview that he was “not afraid of dying, but of suffering.”

It is, due to this fact, an explosive and very delicate concern, which divides, each within the seats and inside the medical neighborhood. Already in 2021 the Assembly rejected a invoice to legalize euthanasia. In this case, the textual content ready by the Government will first undergo the Council of State, which must confirm that it complies with the Constitution.

Macron, who’s the son of medical doctors, has detailed the calendar that the norm will comply with, if the Council validates it: the Council of Ministers will current it within the month of April and the thought is to take it to the Assembly on the finish of May, simply earlier than the European elections.

“It is a text with many challenges. We are not going to ask for it to be processed urgently,” Macron mentioned this Monday on X (previously Twitter). He assures that the regulation can be ready “in a transparent manner” and taking into consideration the moral side. Almost none of them discuss euthanasia or assisted suicide.. “Words are important and we must try to name reality without creating ambiguities (…) It is a law of fraternity that reconciles the autonomy of the individual and the solidarity of the nation,” she famous.

He provides that “it does not create a new right or freedom, but rather trace a path that does not exist until now and opens the possibility of asking for help to die in certain circumstances.

Last year, the then Minister of Health, Agnes Firmin By Bodo, presented him a draft on the subject. “This regulation is critical as a result of there are instances that we can not humanly settle for in our nation, that make households, sufferers, and medical groups endure,” Macron insisted.

France already has a law that allows terminally ill patients to stop taking medications and receive only palliative care. The French Catholic Church has criticized this future law, considering that it “opens the door to assisted suicide,” in the words of the president of the French Episcopal Conference, Eric Moulins-Beaufortto the Efe agency.

The processing and debate of this law will be complicated, as has happened with the major reforms proposed by Macron in his second term. The Government does not have a majority in the Assembly and will have, as happened with the immigration law, to seek support to move it forward, especially in the conservative wing and specifically in the Republican party.

A priori they are not very favorable to a law that authorizes euthanasia. Already in 2022, during the presidential election campaign, the then candidate of this formation, Bruno Retailleaupointed out that what needs to be done is not to create a law but to increase investment in palliative care “to accompany people who find themselves going to die.”

The president of National Regrouping, Marine Le Pen, was also against approving a law that helps people die and pointed out that it is a sensitive issue that should be voted on in a referendum. Her party leads the polls ahead of the European elections to be held in June.

Palliative care associations are also quite skeptical and have criticized the French president's proposal. The president of the French palliative care society, Claire Fourcaderemembers that in France there are about 500 people every day who do not have access to palliative care, which will make it “simpler to resort to loss of life than to assist,” he told Le Figaro.

A priori, this help to the patient to die would be provided by someone from the medical team that takes care of the patient or a family member of the patient. Macron, in the aforementioned interview, has also promised to increase the amount allocated to palliative care, up to 1,000 million euros in 10 years.