After almost seven years of personal doubts on the matter, Emmanuel Macron has finally decided to announce a “help-in-dying” law, a concept that, according to him, is not the same as euthanasia or assisted suicide. The euphemism reflects the president’s almost obsessive desire for balance and, in a certain way, the French vocation for sovereignty, to always follow his own path, also in the ethical field.
The bill will begin its parliamentary process after the Government gives the green light to the text in April. The debate, therefore, will fully erupt in the European elections on June 9 and will contribute to polarizing voters and heating up the campaign.
Future legal aid in dying will be possible only “under strict conditions.” Only people of legal age and of sound mind may apply. Therefore, to avoid abuse, patients with Alzheimer’s or neurodegenerative diseases, and people with psychiatric problems are excluded. A requirement of the plaintiffs will be that they suffer from an incurable disease or a very serious life prognosis in the short or medium term. This last criterion suggests a wide potential range that already worries detractors. A medical team will have to decide, in a collegial and transparent manner, on the cases.
The administration of the lethal drug will be done by the patient himself, if physically possible, or by a person designated by him, who may be a close person, if he accepts, or a nurse or doctor. There will be a period of three months for the decision to materialize, unless the person changes their mind. Social security will take care of the expense that this aid-in-dying procedure entails.
The formula chosen by Macron to announce the law was significant of the demand for balance, of the phrase “en même temps” (at the same time) that he has used so much, to the point of caricature, since he arrived at the Elysée in 2017. The boss of State gave the interview to two disparate media, the newspaper Libération, flagship of left-wing intellectuality, and the Catholic newspaper La Croix.
There is currently a law in France that allows deep sedation until death for terminally ill patients, but those who want euthanasia or assisted suicide usually travel to clinics in Belgium or Switzerland. Some public figures, such as the actress and singer François Hardy, have made public calls to Macron to legislate on the matter and make it possible to respect the will of patients in the country itself. In the end, the president agrees with them, although with a semantic caution that expresses moral modesty. “We have thought of it as a law of fraternity, a law that reconciles the autonomy of the individual and the solidarity of the nation,” he said in the interview.
The polls show a clear social majority in favor of the law that the president promotes. The left-wing parties would like to go further. There is division on the traditional conservative right, and the extreme right is against it.
After the recent inclusion of the right to abort in the Constitution, the future “aid in dying” law will be the second major ethical issue that Macron addresses in his second term, already very agitated by social debates such as those derived from the reform of pensions, immigration management and periodic eruptions of street violence.
