France is on track to become the latest European nation to legalize assisted suicide for adults suffering from severe maladies, but not without opposition.
The National Assembly voted on Tuesday to establish a “right to assistance in dying” for adults who are “afflicted with a serious illness” and have requested euthanasia.
Under the framework of the bill, both French nationals and foreigners with permanent residence are eligible. It passed with 305 members of parliament in favor and 199 members against.
ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE POISED TO PASS PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE
The bill will now begin the grueling process of debate in the Senate, the upper chamber of France’s legislature, where it will be marked up and edited by the conservative majority.
President Emmanuel Macron applauded the breakthrough in the National Assembly, which marks what he calls an “important step” to fulfilling a campaign promise he made in 2022.
“With respect for sensitivities, doubts, and hopes, the path of fraternity that I hoped for is gradually opening up,” he said following the vote.
Other high-ranking officials in the French government are not as enthusiastic, expressing fears that the decision will open the door for abuse that victimizes the weakest in society.
Most prominently, Prime Minister François Bayrou voiced opposition to the idea of legalizing assisted suicide. It was the prime minister who split the initial bill, which covered both euthanasia and expanded palliative care, into two bills.
Critics accused Bayrou, a practicing Catholic, of being muddled by his religious beliefs.
Despite its enthusiastic secularism, France remains tied in many ways to its Catholic heritage.
The Catholic Church is among the most prominent global opponents against euthanasia, and high-ranking clerics across the nation launched a campaign to sway parliamentarians against the bill.
Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris led 10 other French bishops in drafting a letter that urged parliamentarians against the bill, warning this first step towards assisted suicide will send France unto an “infinitely dangerous and deadly slope” from which it is “impossible not to slide irreversibly toward ever-greater permissiveness.”
“Ladies and gentlemen of Parliament, yes, our society is anxious—but we must never accept the idea that this anxiety can be soothed at the cost of an anthropological rupture that would amount to a crime against dignity, a crime against fraternity, a crime against life.”
The bishops asserted that instead of establishing a misguided “right to die,” it would be more healthy for society to instead pour money into improving the nation’s palliative care and showing terminally ill patients that they are still worthy of dignity.
“We know, and you know, that every day in palliative care units, men and women who once asked to die change their minds — because they are seen not as ‘almost dead’ but as ‘still living,’ deserving of care, support, and relief from pain and fear,” the bishops said in their letter.
Proponents say the legislation is fundamentally about offering autonomy to the sick and dying, not encouraging suicide.
Supporters in France hope that the bill can be made a law by 2027, but critics hope there is still time to bog down the bill between chambers and chip away at the MPs who voted for it.
Assisted dying programs have been rolled out across the West, including such nations as Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland, and elsewhere.
It has become a sensitive topic in the Netherlands, where use of the program is growing among those not typically considered candidates for suicide.
Last year, the Netherlands euthanized just under 10,000 people. It marked a staggering 60% increase in assisted suicide cases compared to the previous year and almost 6% of all deaths nationally.
The increasing rate of young people being approved to die due to depression or other forms of mental suffering has raised concerns among oversight committees, who fear the program is already being taken too far.
In North America, Canada has pioneered the assisted death industry through their Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program.
The fifth annual MAID report, published by the Canadian government in December of last year, showed 15,343 people were euthanized by the government in 2023. That marks a nearly 16% increase over the previous year.
The report attributed the uptick in assisted suicides to a variety of factors, including “an increased awareness of MAID within the care continuum, population aging, and the associated patterns of illness or disease, personal beliefs, and societal acceptance, as well as the availability of practitioners who provide MAID.”
Approximately 95% of those who were approved for MAID were “Track 1” individuals whose natural death was “reasonably foreseeable,” with the most common reason being cancer.
“Track 2” individuals — those whose natural death was not reasonably foreseeable — made up 5% of assisted suicides. These cases mostly centered on medical issues, including diabetes, chronic pain, and other non-lethal afflictions.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ASSISTED SUICIDE BECOMES THE NORM?
Assisted suicide programs are currently gaining ground in the United States, primarily at the state level.
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer signed legislation legalizing assisted suicide on Tuesday in a reversal of his predecessor’s veto against the practice.
