PARIS.-The president of France’s Emmanuel Macron announced a new bill to legalize “assistance in dying” that will allow terminally ill adults to take lethal medication, a first in the country.
A report published last year showed that the majority of French citizens favor legalizing life-ending options.
In an interview published Monday by French newspapers La Croix and Libération, Macron said the new rule will be restricted to adults suffering from incurable diseases who are expected to die in the “short or medium term” and who suffer physical or psychological pain. not treatable.”
The president said that the law will offer “a possible path, in a given situation, with precise criteria, in which the medical decision plays a role.”
He gave as an example terminal cancer patients, who until now had to travel abroad to end their lives.
Only people 18 years of age or older with the capacity to form their own opinion will be able to benefit from the process, which means that people with psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s will not be eligible, Macron clarified.
Patients who want to start the process will have to reconfirm their decision after 48 hours and will then receive a response from a medical team in two weeks at most, Macron said. A doctor will then issue them a three-month prescription for the lethal medication.
People will be able to take the medication at home, in a nursing home or at a medical center, Macron said.
If their physical condition does not allow them to do it alone, they will be allowed to receive help from a person of their choice, a doctor or a nurse.
Macron said the new bill would refer to “assistance in dying … because it is simple and compassionate,” rather than terms such as euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.
Physician-assisted suicide involves patients voluntarily taking a lethal drink or medication prescribed by a doctor for whom they meet certain criteria. Euthanasia involves doctors or other healthcare personnel giving patients who meet certain criteria a lethal injection they have requested.
Macron did not set a time frame for the legislation to take effect, noting that it will first have to go through the legislative process, which would begin in May and take several months.
A 2016 French law allows doctors to keep terminally ill patients sedated before death, but stops short of allowing assisted suicide or euthanasia.
Some French patients travel to other European countries to seek more options. Assisted suicide is allowed in neighboring Switzerland, as well as in Portugal. Euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain in some circumstances.
Source: With information from AP
