The current law on the end of life does not go far enough. This is the opinion of 156 deputies who co-sign a platform in The world this Wednesday February 28. They call for new legislation in the course of 2018 to authorize euthanasia, once again opening this thorny ethical debate. “It is advisable to give patients at the end of their life the free disposal of their body and, it is essential, of their destiny,” say the authors of this forum.
The signatories, including 122 from the majority of the Republic in motion, ask the government to take up this issue of the end of life. The elected officials commit themselves in this text in favor of an active medical assistance in dying, specifies Le Monde. “It is no longer reasonable to wait any longer, to observe without reacting the physical and psychological suffering of many of these French people, to count the number of legal cases which are multiplying but come to nothing, because we cannot condemn the compassion and solidarity, ”they say. “The choice of the person must be able to be respected, when it is free, enlightened, subjected to no constraint or depression, expressed repeatedly, and that doctors have confirmed the therapeutic impasse”, they specify in the forum of the World.
An assessment of the current law before any debate
At the end of January 2016, the Clays-Leonetti law had been definitively adopted by parliamentarians, establishing a right to “deep and continuous sedation” until death for patients. terminally ill. It also establishes binding advance directives making it possible toexpress your refusal of therapeutic relentlessness.
This plea in favor of a new law should reopen the debate on the end of life, against the wishes of the government. In October 2017, the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn said she wanted to wait for the results of an evaluation on the current Clays-Leonetti law before reopening the discussion on this subject.
Read also:
Hospital makes patients’ dreams come true with virtual reality
After seeing a patient’s tattoo, doctors do not resuscitate him