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Bill on end of life: Catherine Vautrin discusses the public of assisted dying
Bill on end of life: Catherine Vautrin discusses the public of assisted dying
(FRANCEINFO)
The Minister of Health put forward this figure at the National Assembly on Monday, on the first day of examination of the text in the hemicycle.
Who could be the beneficiaries of assisted dying in France? At the start of the debates on the bill on the end of life in the National Assembly, the Minister of Health, Catherine Vautrin, put forward, Monday May 27, an estimate of “4,000 people per year”, or less than 1% of deaths. The patients concerned would be “mostly suffering from cancer or terminal pulmonary fibrosis” And “serious neurodegenerative diseases in a very advanced phase which can lead to paralysis of muscles involving motor skills or swallowing”she added.
“We are talking about situations within a specific perimeter”, defended the minister from the podium of the National Assembly. The government wants assistance in dying to be “open only” to adults “suffering from serious and incurable conditions with a short or medium-term vital prognosis, suffering from unbearable pain and refractory to treatment” And “who express the request in a free and informed manner”she emphasized.
The minister called for a return to the initial version of the bill, after the deputies deleted in committee the notion of “vital prognosis committed in the short or medium term”preferring that of affection “in advanced or terminal phase”.
