The Minister of Health François Braun showed reservations on Saturday on a law on “active assistance in dying”, as recommended by the Convention on the end of life, believing that priority should go “to strengthening the existing one”.
“The debate on active assistance in dying is still open. A law along these lines would profoundly change our society and our relationship to death,” said the minister, who spoke for the first time on the subject in The world.
“If society were to move in the direction of active assistance in dying, it could only be in very specific cases and which should be rigorously supervised”, he judges while Emmanuel Macron announced a project of end-of-life law “by the end of the summer”.
The Convention on the end of life, made up of 184 citizens who have just debated the subject for three months, answered three-quarters “yes” to “active aid in dying”, concretely assisted suicide or euthanasia, by matching however its positions have important restrictions.
Current legislation, set by the Claeys-Leonetti law of 2016, allows caregivers to irreversibly sedate patients near death, whose suffering is intolerable.
But it does not go so far as to authorize assisted suicide (the patient administers the lethal product himself) or euthanasia (a caregiver injects it).
According to Mr. Braun, even by modifying the law, “we will never respond to all situations”. It’s “each time the end of a life and each situation is different”.
“Whatever option we put on the table, priority must be given to strengthening what already exists. Through greater appropriation of advance directives, by better trained health professionals, by better use of sedation deep and continuous until death: these are tools that we will strengthen by supporting palliative care”, he promises.
The minister says he is “convinced that if we succeed, then there will be far fewer requests for assistance in dying”.
If the legislation were to evolve towards active assistance in dying, then François Braun “does not want it to be able to impose itself as an obligation on doctors” and “does not believe that it must necessarily be done in a medical environment”.
04/08/2023 12:02:37 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP