French bishops decry new bill on assisted-dying

By Lisa Zengarini

After the final adoption of the amendment to the French Constitution making abortion a constitutional right, President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday that he would present a bill in May legalizing medical assistance in dying for patients in last phase.

This decision follows a long consultation that he launched in the fall of 2023, during which a majority came out in favor of the bill, which was part of his electoral program during the 2022 presidential campaign .

New law would apply to terminally ill adults

In an interview with the daily Libération and the Catholic daily La Croix, the French president clarified that this measure would apply strictly to adults suffering from short or medium-term illnesses, such as terminal cancer.

He said the new law would allow a terminally ill person, in their full mental capacity, to self-administer a lethal substance or, in the case where a patient is not physically capable, to request that another person is designated to do so. do it. If medical professionals reject the request, the patient can consult another medical team or appeal, he added.

According to the proposed text, the substance can be administered at the patient's home, in retirement homes or care centers. Medical experts will have 15 days to respond to the request for assistance in dying, and an agreement will be valid for three months, during which the patient can withdraw.

This is not a “law of fraternity”

French Catholic bishops, who have long advocated for strengthening palliative care, rejected the bill. “A law like this, whatever its objective, will tilt our entire health system towards death as a solution,” Mgr Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, archbishop of Reims and president of the Conference of Bishops, told La Croix of France (CEF).

President Macron further fueled the controversy by calling the bill a “law on fraternity.”

“Qualifying a text which opens up both assisted suicide and euthanasia as a “law on fraternity” is misleading,” declared Mgr Moulins-Beaufort.

Mgr Matthieu Rougé, Bishop of Nanterre, who participated in the consultation, insisted on the fact that the text cannot be considered as a law on fraternity: “Fraternity requires unconditional respect for the life of each person”, said he declared.

French bishops have expressed disappointment that the focus has been on helping the sick to die, rather than relieving their suffering and providing the best possible quality of life through palliative care.