While Emmanuel Macron announced the establishment of a citizens’ convention on the end of life with a view to a text of law in 2023, the National Advisory Ethics Committee (CCNE) considers possible a strictly supervised assisted suicide, in a notice published Tuesday, September 13. “There is a way for an ethical application of active assistance in dying, under certain strict conditions with which it seems unacceptable to compromise”said Alain Claeys, one of the CCNE’s rapporteurs, during a press conference.
>> “Deep sedation is refusing to see things in the face”: suffering from incurable cancer, Marie-Hélène wishes to benefit from active assistance in dying
Assisted suicide would only be accessible to adults, suffering from serious or incurable illnesses causing physical and/or psychological suffering impossible to alleviate, according to the opinion of the CCNE: adults whose vital prognosis is committed in the medium term ( from a few weeks to a few months). In the case, for example, of neurodegenerative diseases such as Charcot’s disease or for certain very advanced cancers. For now, the law offers nothing for them.
Another condition recommended by the CCNE to benefit from this aid in dying: the request must be expressed clearly, several times (in a free, informed, repeated manner), and the green light must be given in writing, with supporting arguments, by a set of doctors. They are the ones who will provide the lethal product that the patient can inject. In the event that he is unable to commit suicide because he is no longer physically fit, the members of the National Ethics Advisory Committee also open the way to euthanasia. In both cases, euthanasia and assisted suicide, they provide for a conscience clause for health professionals who do not want to help someone die.
But before that, euthanasia and assisted suicide will have to be authorized by law. The National Ethics Advisory Committee would already like the existing law to be better applied. This is the Leonetti-Claeys law passed in 2016, which provides that doctors can put to sleep until they die incurable patients who suffer and whose vital prognosis is committed in the short term, at most a few days. .
The problem is that this palliative care is not sufficiently developed, for lack of means. To move up a gear, the committee calls for a national debate. What the Elysee has just announced on Tuesday morning with the launch of a citizens’ convention, organized by the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE). It will see the light of day next month and will deliver its conclusions in March 2023. There will therefore be no law or referendum before this date.