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France Moves To Legalize Assisted Dying

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

PARIS/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – After an emotional debate, France’s parliament approved a move to legalize assisted dying, despite the devout Catholic prime minister having concerns about the law.

The bill enables caregivers “to help” patients end their lives under what campaigners say would still be some of the strictest conditions in Europe.

Legislators passed “the first reading” of the bill Tuesday by a vote of 305 to 199. They also unanimously backed a less contentious law establishing a right to palliative care in specialist end-of-life institutions.

However, proceeding observers said both votes start a lengthy process requiring the bills to move on to the Senate – the upper house – and then back to the lower house – the National Assembly – for a second reading. That means they are unlikely to become law before next year.

Government officials called the right-to-die law “an ethical response to the need to support the sick and the suffering,” insisting it was “neither a new right nor a freedom … but a balance between respect and personal autonomy”.

Yet Prime Minister François Bayrou, a devout Catholic, had said he had “questions” and would abstain from voting if he were a parliamentarian. However, influential President Emmanuel Macron said last year that France needed the law as “there are situations you cannot humanely accept.”

The legislation will allow a medical team to decide if a patient is eligible to “gain access to a lethal substance when they have expressed the wish.”

USING THEMSELVES

Patients could use it themselves or have it administered by a nurse or doctor “if they are in no condition physically to do so themselves.”

Additionally, patients must be over 18, hold French citizenship or residency, and suffer from a “serious and incurable, life-threatening, advanced or terminal illness” that is “irreversible.”

The disease must cause “constant, unbearable physical or psychological suffering” that cannot be addressed by medical treatment, according to the law text.

A patient must be capable of “expressing freely and in an informed manner” their wish to end their life.

The bill – referred to in France as a law on “end of life” or “aid in dying” rather than “assisted dying” or “euthanasia” – was backed by most of Macron’s centrist legislators and their allies and by the left.

However, most right and far-right deputies voted against it.

All parliamentary groups were given a free vote to express their personal convictions. Euthanasia is a highly sensitive subject in France, a country with a longstanding Catholic tradition, and many health workers also oppose the bill.

SLOWER PROCESS

France has been slower than several European neighbors to legalize assisted dying. Others are actively debating the issue, including Britain, where an assisted dying bill is before parliament.

Active euthanasia, where a caregiver induces death at the request of the patient, and assisted suicide, where doctors provide the patient with the means to end their life themselves, have been legal in the Netherlands and Belgium for more than two decades.

Both countries apply roughly similar conditions – a doctor and an independent expert must agree the patient is suffering unbearably and without hope of improvement – and have since extended the right to children under 12.

However, in the Netherlands, the first too country to legalize ending life to eliminate pain and suffering, many persons with psychiatric illnesses are among those ending their lives, authorities warned.

The regional euthanasia review committees (RTE) showed that the number of euthanasia deaths rose from 9,068 in 2023 to 9,958 in 2024, Worthy News reported earlier this year.

While the vast majority of people – 86 percent– had an advanced physical disease such as cancer, 219 people died for psychiatric reasons, compared with 138 in 2023. In 2010, there were only two such cases in this country of 18 million people.

In a statement, the RTE urged doctors to employ “great caution” with psychiatric conditions. The organization said medics should consult a psychiatric specialist as well as an independent doctor who is part of a network of physicians providing information to colleagues on euthanasia.

ACTIVE EUTHANASIA

Luxembourg also decriminalized active euthanasia and assisted dying in 2009.

Active euthanasia is outlawed in Switzerland, but assisted dying has been legal since the 1940s, and organizations such as Exit and Dignitas have helped thousands of Swiss nationals, residents, and others to end their lives.

Austria legalized assisted dying in 2022, while Spain adopted a law in 2021 allowing euthanasia and medically assisted dying for people with a serious and incurable illness.

Spanish legislation says those choosing to end their lives must be capable and conscious; the request must be made in writing, reconfirmed later, and approved by an evaluation committee.

Portugal decriminalized euthanasia in 2023, but the measure has not yet come into force after the constitutional court rejected specific articles.

In Britain, legislators approved a law of assisted dying in England and Wales for adults with an incurable illness who have a life expectancy of under six months and are able to take the substance that causes their death themselves in a first vote in November last year.

Parliament must now vote on whether the text, amended in May to allow medics to opt-out, is sent to the upper chamber for further scrutiny. The Scottish legislature has also passed its first vote on a bill to legalize assisted dying.

Yet back in France, campaigners say they hope it will end shopping for euthanasia. “Forcing people to go to Belgium or Switzerland, pay 10,000 euros ($11,300) or 15,000 euros ($17,000). The current situation is just wrong,” said right-to-die campaigner Stéphane Gemmani in published remarks.

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