“We have taken far too much time on this subject to settle for a strict minimum”, believes the president of the association for the right to die with dignity

The day after Emmanuel Macron’s announcements on the future bill for “assisted dying”, Jonathan Denis welcomes “a step forward” but says he is “vigilant”.

“We have taken far too much time on this subject to settle for a strict minimum today”believes, Monday March 11, at the microphone of France Inter, Jonathan Denis, president of the ADMD (association for the right to die with dignity), the day after Emmanuel Macron’s announcements on the future bill for a “assisted dying”. On Sunday, the head of state affirmed in an interview with Libération and La Croix that the text establishing assistance in dying under “strict conditions” will be presented to the Council of Ministers in April, with a view to a first reading in May in the National Assembly.

The president of the ADMD welcomes a first step forward, rejoicing to see “that finally, the President of the Republic presents a bill and gives a timetable”. Jonathan Denis reminds, at the microphone of France Culture, that “it’s been over a year” that the associations “waited” this text. “In the advances, there is obviously this possibility of assistance in dying”, he reacts.

“Many things in this project do not suit us”

But he considers that the text, as it stands, does not go far enough. Jonathan Denis shows up “vigilant”, because there is, according to him, “still many things in this bill that do not suit us”. He denounces “an absence of freedom of choice between assisted suicide [c’est-à-dire quand] the person performs the procedure themselves, and euthanasia, where it is a third party caregiver who performs the lethal procedure at their request.. The president of the ADMD fears “that tomorrow requests can be expressed and that we are still unable to support them”.

Jonathan Denis also points out one of the conditions set out by Emmanuel Macron, namely that this possibility will concern patients with a “vital prognosis committed in the short or medium term”. The president of the association for the right to die with dignity judges this condition “much too restrictive”. He thus wishes to know what is “the medium term”: “Will it be a vital prognosis at 6 months? At 12 months?” he asks himself. Jonathan Denis wonders “What are we going to say to people who have a vital prognosis at 14 months? That we have to suffer a little more before being able to access assistance in dying?”

“All this is absolutely unimaginable“, adds Jonathan Denis. The president of the ADMD therefore considers that a “a law that is not amended or improved by parliamentarians on these conditions would be a law that would still force French people to go abroad, even though we have been discussing all of this for more than 40 years.”