France takes a decisive step towards the legalization of assisted suicide. After two weeks of tight debate, The National Assembly approved in first reading the bill that introduces the “right to active aid to die”. The text now goes into the examination of the Senate, where the center -right is majority, and will return to the lower room probably not before the beginning of 2026.
The vote showed a solid majority: 305 votes in favor against 199 against. A result that marks an important victory for President Emmanuel Macron, promoter of the reform since 2022, and for the Minister of Health Catherine Vautrin, who aims to complete the legislative path by the end of the presidential mandate, in 2027.
The new legislation provides for the Possibility to “authorize and accompany” those who, suffering from a “serious and incurable disease”, are in “advanced phase” or “terminal” and experience “constant physical or psychological suffering”. Five criteria established in the draft in order to access the assisted suicide: you must be of age, have French citizenship or reside permanently in French territory, be able to make free and aware decisions and have a serious, incurable pathology and an advanced or terminal stage.
The patient will have to administer the lethal substance by himself, or he can receive it from a healthcare professional if he is unable to proceed independently.
The vote crossed the party lines. Each parliamentary group has left freedom of consciousness, but the migly has divided with a certain consistency: The left and the centrist block is favorable, contrary the right and the far right.
Since Southeast Asia, where he is engaged in a state visit, Emmanuel Macron commented: “The approval by the National Assembly of law projects relating to the development of palliative care and help to die is an important stage. In compliance with sensitivity, doubts and hopes, the way of the fraternity is gradually opening that I hoped for. With dignity and humanity ».
If the measure is also adopted in the Senate and definitively ratified, France will become the eighth country in Europe to legalize assisted suicide. Currently, the law only allows the “deep and continuous sedation to death” in terminal cases, a practice that many still consider far from the principle of self -determination at the end of life.
Source: Vanity Fair
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