Guest of Déborah Grunwald on the program Dans le Rétro a few days ago, Véronique Sanson spoke about the need to alleviate the suffering of people at the end of life, and called on the government and the head of the State. “I don’t understand why in France we can’t alleviate this monstrous agony. And that, I say to the government, I say to Emmanuel Macron, to the church. It is always necessary to die in abominable sufferings and to offer them to the lord and one does not always know what he makes of these sufferings the lord.“, she chanted before explaining: ‘Offer your sufferings to the Lord!’, I have always read that in catechism. But what does he do with it? Does he eat it? So this non-euthanasia law should be changed. It’s a lack of empathy and above all it’s useless, it’s a relentlessness. We let people die and agonize.“
Words that echo the renewed debate on euthanasia. Emmanuel Macron indeed announced the forthcoming launch of a “citizen convention” on the end of life. Today, it is the Claeys-Leonetti law which governs the end of life of terminally ill patients in France. Adopted in 2016, after a first version in 2005, it prohibits euthanasia and assisted suicide, but allows “deep and continuous sedation until death” for terminally ill patients in very great suffering, whose life prognosis is engaged “in the short term”.
If Véronique Sanson also addresses the Church, it is because the clergy have always firmly condemned euthanasia. Invited this October 31 of the morning of Europe 1, Monsignor Matthieu Rougé was clear on the ecclesiastical positions. “The French bishops, we have taken a stand for active help to live. And I myself also had the opportunity to speak with Rabbi Michael Azoulay, because we are really on the same wavelength with our Jewish friends on the subject by saying we are here to choose life”, explained the man of the Church.
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