By Alex Schadenberg, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - International Chair
Editor’s note. The following is slightly revised from the version that first appeared on alexschadenberg.blogspot.ca.
French President Francois Hollande
France’s official Ethics Advisory Committee (the Comité Consultatif National d’Ethique, or CCNE) has rejected the legalization of assisted suicide after a majority vote. Last December, the CCNE rejected the legalization of euthanasia.
In a vote made public Monday, July 1, the committee voted against Swiss style assisted suicide, where lethal medication is deliberately given to a patient. This is significant, because when the CCNE voted against euthanasia, it concluded that assisted suicide may be legalized.
The Committee had stated that euthanasia is “a radical medical gesture” that crossed “a forbidden barrier” – and was both impractical and immoral.
The July 1 report ‘severely criticised current medical care of terminally-ill patients in France and called for the development of better palliative care regimes. It emphasized the moral use of palliative sedation rather than euthanasia or assisted suicide.
A poll released in January 2012, found that 60% of the people in France preferred improvements to palliative care rather than legalizing euthanasia.
Nonetheless a report from Reuters news stated that Francois Hollande, France’s President, will introduce a bill, later this year, to legalize euthanasia. The euthanasia bill would be against the recommendations of the Ethics Advisory Committee.
A news report from The Local (which reports French news in English) also stated
In February, the ethics council said that out of a “duty of humanity”, and where there were “persistent, lucid and repeated requests from someone suffering from an ailment for which the treatment has become ineffective,” it should be legal to withdraw that treatment and allow that individual to die.
But it said at the time that the condition should be verified “not by a sole doctor but a medical team” and did not use the term euthanasia but spoke of “assisted death”.
The CCNE has also been emphatic in ruling out Swiss-style assisted suicide clinics such as Dignitas, where individuals not necessarily suffering from terminal or incurable illnesses, volunteer to be given lethal injections so as to end their lives.
Last year, groups opposing euthanasia organized several effective rallies.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition predicts that the government of France will face massive opposition to its proposed euthanasia bill. We also predict that the euthanasia bill will be defeated in France