French MPs are in a mad race to promote death at any price.
Members in the French National Assembly are currently debating a bill on euthanasia. A worrying momentum has been building over the last few days, causing widespread alarm both in public opinion and among the medical profession. One by one, ethical barriers are being removed, making this proposed law one of the most permissive in the world.
The members of parliament are currently meeting in a special committee before the general debate due to take place in the chamber on May 27th. Since work began on examining the law, there has been a dramatic surge of amendments and new provisions aimed at getting rid of all the safeguards initially proposed in the government’s plan to limit recourse to ‘aid in dying.’
In recent months, President Emmanuel Macron had called for “caution,” while health minister Catherine Vautrin wanted to “maintain the balance.” These calls for vigilance may have been insincere, but at least they were said. They were, however, not heeded.
The first significant shift was the introduction of assisted dying into the public health code. This choice, apparently purely formal, is very important. It implies that euthanasia will henceforth be considered as “care.” A few months ago, some left-wing MPs were already using this term to describe abortion.
A second serious shift concerns the eligibility criteria for aid in dying. The initial wording referred to “a short or medium-term life-threatening condition”. Against the government’s advice, the members of the Special Committee voted to replace the wording with the notion of an “advanced or terminal phase” of the illness. Yannick Neuder, a Les Républicains MP and doctor, expressed his alarm at this serious change in terminology on X: “There are hundreds of cases of illnesses that are curable even though they are terminal.” In these cases, patients run the risk of inappropriately being pushed towards aid in dying.
The heart of the law is Article 5, which defines the term “aid in dying,” i.e., the administration of a lethal substance by the person concerned. Euthanasia, in which the lethal act is carried out by a carer or a third party, was initially intended to be an exception for patients who were “physically unable to carry it out.” Here again, the debates in committee changed the initial draft. An amendment removed the criterion of physical impossibility, leaving the patient freer to decide between these two methods of aid in dying. Euthanasia is therefore no longer an ‘exception.’ In countries that had planned to allow the two methods to coexist, euthanasia is ultimately carried out in the overwhelming majority of cases. The 48-hour period for patients to consider whether they wish to receive aid in dying has been relaxed: it can now be shortened on the advice of a doctor.
Catholic lawyer and columnist Erwan Le Morhedec, a volunteer in palliative care, whistleblower, and author of a book on the march towards euthanasia in France, follows the changes in the legislation on a daily basis and reports on all the abuses that have been recorded and are well known in countries that are ‘ahead’ of France on the issue of euthanasia. Drawing parallels with the laws in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada, he concludes that the French proposal will go much further, and that the remedies available to oppose mass recourse to euthanasia will be woefully inadequate.
Far-left LFI MP Danielle Simonnet is campaigning “for it to be possible to access aid in dying if you are no longer fully conscious.” Le Morhedec points out that in the Netherlands and Canada, this approach has made it possible to euthanise Alzheimer’s patients, once the ‘end of life’ criterion has been removed.
In the latest provisions to be ratified by the MEPs, we learn that it will be possible to challenge the decision to refuse euthanasia, but that it will not be possible for a relative to challenge the decision to grant it. On the model of what exists for abortion, an “offence of hindering assisted dying” was created, while the creation of an “offence of inciting assisted suicide” was rejected. The parallel between abortion and euthanasia is perfectly obvious:
Also rejected was the ban on third parties requesting assistance in dying taking out death insurance—a ban initially included to avoid abuse of weakness. It’s easy to imagine the sordid scenarios that would ensue from such a situation.
Many MPs, both Left and Right, are concerned about the direction the debate is taking. Centre-right LR MP Annie Genevard believes that a “Pandora’s box” has been opened, while Communist Pierre Dharréville speaks of a “tipping point” with “dizzying anthropological dimensions.” The chair of the committee, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, from the governing Renaissance party, also feels worried: “We’re no longer working under the same law. This is not the balance of the law that was intended.”
LR MP Philippe Juvin denounced the “manipulation of words” surrounding the debates. He explained on X that “the words ‘euthanasia’ and ‘assisted suicide’ are totally absent from the text of a law that only talks about them.” The debates prefer to talk about “attractive ‘care and support homes’ presented as major advances.” Under these conditions, how can we fail to think of the famous “merciful death” extolled by the National Socialists in the Aktion T4 programme designed to implement the physical elimination of the disabled in the Third Reich in 1939?
Although still timidly, voices of protest are being raised in the public debate. Former centrist minister François Bayrou, interviewed on the LCI channel, explained that he was in favour of “another vision” which he believes “is much more generous and powerful as a society and civilisation.” Jeanne-Françoise Hutin, an 85-year-old campaigner for European integration, announced in the press that she would be giving up her Legion of Honour if the bill were to be adopted. She explains in the daily Ouest-France:
I would no longer be able to join this Order of the Legion of Honour—this order that has always defended the most vulnerable. The law would reintroduce into our legal arsenal a right that was withdrawn in 1981: the right to give death. The purpose of this law is to end life, to kill people who are in a very fragile situation, with, moreover, limits that are completely blurred … and we have seen in recent years what has happened when the limits are blurred!
For the moment, the voice of the Catholic Church in France remains very timid, as if the high clergy had not grasped the seriousness of what is happening. There has been no recent official communication on the subject.
Nevertheless, we can remain hopeful. These crazy measures were decided by a “special committee”—a small group of MPs. It will be up to the members of parliament, and then the senators in a full session, to change the course of this evil reform that seems to be taking shape by invalidating it. They have the power—but will they have the courage?
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