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France poised to legalize 'right' to assisted suicide in coming days

By Jeanne Smits, Paris correspondentMay 23, 2025 at 12:33 PM
France poised to legalize 'right' to assisted suicide in coming days
Pressmaster/Shutterstock | Elderly woman in hospital

The only criminal provisions in the proposed law are those related to a new offence created for this purpose: trying to save the suicide-minded patient's life.

(LifeSiteNews) — The French National Assembly is currently discussing a bill that aims to create a “right to assisted dying” which, if adopted next Tuesday, May 27, as planned and expected, would threaten to become one of most extreme “end of life” laws in the world.

Parliamentary discussions would then continue after the debate moved to the Senate, but President Emmanuel Macron has regularly signaled his support for making chosen death legal and reaffirmed it when he visited the masonic Grande Loge de France on May 5, exactly seven days before French MPs opened their two-week-long debate. 

The bill, submitted by National Assembly member Olivier Falorni, a former socialist party member now affiliated with “Les Démocrates,” is extreme in its provisions: it has minimal security requirements and can lead to effective doctor-accompanied assisted suicide within 18 days of a patient’s request. At the same time, as it now stands, it will create a new “delict” punishing the “prevention” of “assisted dying,” similar to the criminalization of acts intending to prevent legal abortion. 

The parliamentary debate opened on May 12. Nearly 2,000 amendments are under discussion, the majority of which have already been rejected, in particular those aiming to place safeguards in the law. Only a minority of the Assembly’s 577 members have been present during the debates. For example, the bill’s main article 2, which defines and authorizes “assisted dying,” allowing a person to receive a “lethal substance” to self-administer, was adopted on the following Saturday, May 17, by a 75 to 41 majority. 

In so doing, MPs formally approved the creation of a “right to assisted dying.” They did, however, reinstate the principle that patients themselves must administer the lethal substance; this had been removed from the original text by a parliamentary committee that wanted to allow doctors and nurses to give the lethal substance to any patient eligible for “assisted dying.” This provision is now limited to patients who are unable to self-administer the deadly poison prescribed by their doctor and prepared by a pharmacist—who, incidentally, will have no right to refuse.  

An amendment proposing to prohibit ‘euthanasia and assisted suicide for people with intellectual disabilities’ was rejected on May 20. 

Article 4 of the proposed bill, defining the conditions for access to “assisted dying,” was voted on the following day. As they stand, before the slippery slope sets in, they are as follows.

The patient applying for death must: 

– Be at least eighteen years of age; 

– Be a French national or have permanent and regular residence in France; 

– Have a serious and incurable condition, whatever the cause, that is life-threatening, in an advanced or terminal stage; 

– Be experiencing physical or psychological suffering related to this condition, which is either resistant to treatment or unbearable according to the person when they have chosen not to receive or to stop receiving treatment; 

– Be capable of expressing their wishes freely and in an informed manner. 

These conditions are very lax since the “advanced” stage of a condition is impossible to define, as the French Higher Authority for Health has underscored, and patients can ask to die because they are suffering from their own decision not to receive pain relief.

164 MPs voted in favor of these conditions and 103 against. 

The whole debate is based on multiple lies and tricks, starting with the title of the bill itself. It is called an ‘end-of-life law’ which in reality aims to make assisted suicide and euthanasia legal, without ever using the words. The real objective is to introduce a license to kill. 

While large groups of medical personnel and lawyers have voiced their opposition, and France’s main pro-life organizations, the Fondation Jérôme-Lejeune and Alliance Vita, have actively campaigned against the legalization of “chosen death,” euthanasia, and assisted suicide, the debate has not sparked public attention nationwide. Most of the mainstream media have not underscored the law’s extreme dispositions. 

However, the French Bishops’ Conference has joined representatives of other faiths (Protestants, Orthodox, Jews, Islamic and Buddhist) in signing a strong statement against the “anthropological rupture” the bill is aiming to introduce by allowing doctors to “kill” instead of treating and curing. 

Unfortunately, most of the parliamentary and public debate is centered on the bill’s “safeguards,” without respecting the prime directive of “Thou shalt not kill.” More extreme scenarios or, conversely, less liberal ones are being presented instead. The risk is forgetting that it is the transgression of this principal command that must be fought, without exception, not the manner in which it is carried out. Few mention the obvious: a doctor who kills, even if his patient begs him to, is a killer. 

It remains that Falorni's proposed bill would make the process all too easy. A “practicing doctor” who is consulted in person will have to provide the patient with information “about their state of health” and the treatment and assistance available to him or her, as well as offering an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist. 

READ: Another Catholic church attacked by Islamists in disturbing trend across France

Doctors faced with an assisted suicide request will need to verify that the conditions are met, in particular the patient's ability “to express his or her wishes freely and in an informed manner.” Doctors will be required to consult – even remotely – a colleague who may simply review the applicant's medical file before giving an “opinion” on a person they may have never seen. The first doctor must also seek the opinion of “a medical assistant or nursing assistant who works with the person or, failing that, another medical assistant.” This means someone who only helps a patient to shower will potentially have a say in the matter. 

All this will have to be done very quickly, since the initial doctor – who is not required to have treated the patient previously –, is required to give his opinion within 15 days of the request. The doctor must then respond to the patient, both in writing and orally. If negative, the decision can be challenged by the patient before the administrative courts. 

Patients must then confirm their request after a 48-hour reflection period, after which the doctor can prescribe the lethal potion. As the bill stands, the doctor may even shorten this cooling-off period “if the doctor considers that this is necessary to preserve the dignity” of the person requesting to die, “as he or she understands it.” 

This means that the patient can receive assisted suicide or euthanasia within 18 days of his or her request. On the other hand, if the patient has confirmed the wish to die but delays taking action for more than a year, the doctor will need to start the procedure described above over again.  

The prescribing doctor, incidentally, will not take any great risk in procuring the patient's death. While in the Netherlands and Belgium, both pioneers of euthanasia, proscribing poison remains classified as homicide: it is simply excused by compliance with the conditions laid down by law, which are much more restrictive than those in the French proposal. France has invented another way to circumvent the prohibition of murder. The proposed bill refers to Article 122-4 of the French Penal Code, which states: ‘A person who performs an act prescribed or authorized by legislative or regulatory provisions is not criminally liable.” 

Even more extraordinary is the provision of the law stating that “assisted death” or euthanasia will be considered a “natural death,” and described as such on the patient’s death certificate, to allow the patient’s beneficiaries to collect his or her life insurance. 

A retrospective review is provided for by an assessment committee, which must be notified of each case via an “information system” that will be set up. But if it considers that the doctor has failed to comply with “ethical or professional rules” in preparing the delivery or administration of the “lethal substance” to the patient, it may refer the case to the public prosecutor. If the committee judges that the doctor has breached “ethical or professional rules,” there is no question of referring them to a criminal court. It will simply “refer the matter to the disciplinary chamber of the competent professional body.” 

The bill includes a minimal “conscience clause.” On the one hand, as mentioned earlier, it would not benefit the pharmacists required to prepare and supply a lethal substance prescribed by a doctor, knowing full well that they are providing the means for suicide or euthanasia. On the other hand, “health professionals who do not wish to participate in the implementation of these provisions must immediately inform the person of their refusal and provide them with the names of health professionals who are willing to participate in this implementation.” In other words, even conscientious objectors will be legally required to give the patient the information they need to end their life. At the very least, this constitutes moral complicity imposed on doctors who refuse to aid and abet suicide or to kill their patients. 

Moreover, if the suicide-minded patient is in a care home, the home cannot prevent “assisted suicide” or killing from taking place within its walls. 

The only criminal provisions in the proposed law are those related to a new offence created for this purpose: trying to save the suicidal patient’s life.  

The bill reads: “The act of preventing or attempting to prevent the practice of or obtaining information about assisted dying by any means, including electronic or online means, in particular through dissemination or transmission, shall be punishable by one year's imprisonment and a fine of €15,000.’ 

Based on the example of “obstruction of abortion” which already exists under French law, this new offence has been defined to include “moral and psychological pressure, threats or any act of intimidation against persons seeking information on assisted dying.” 

If this becomes law, organizations that help people with suicidal ideations could find themselves at risk of prosecution. 

There are so many lies supporting this bill, even the French Minister for the Disabled has been accused of  stating untruths in tis favor.

In a video published on X on May 13, 2025, Charlotte Parmentier-Lecocq drew on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to justify euthanasia for disabled people. The Jérôme-Lejeune Foundation then called her out for “fake news.”  

“This is an unacceptable manipulation aimed at concealing the threats posed by the proposed law, which will inevitably lead to abuse,” they declared.  

The Foundation continued:

The minister called for the right to euthanasia to be ‘accessible to all persons with disabilities, as provided for in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.’ However, the Convention does not recognize a ‘right to die’ but strongly affirms the right to life of persons with disabilities (Article 10) and imposes on States the obligation to take all necessary measures to protect it. This right is reinforced by Article 16, which requires the protection of persons with disabilities from all forms of violence, abuse, or inhuman treatment, including in medical practices, and by Article 17, which reaffirms the right to respect for physical and mental integrity. 

Ultimately, the French euthanasia bill is all about human “autonomy,” as it all but aims to consecrate a person’s “right” to “auto-determination” of the moment of death. 

This is a clearly an attempt to deify human will in defiance of God's will. This race towards the institution of  this evil involves not only the main victim, the sick person who is suffering and will find him or herself subject to a truly diabolical manipulation, but also the doctor who carries out the act, the accomplices who assist him, and the whole of society which, through a parliamentary vote, is searching to justify this crime and even deem it good. 

READ: France sees record number of adult converts to the Catholic faith this year

Family & Culture
May 23, 2025 at 12:33 PM
JC

Jeanne Smits, Paris correspondent

Jeanne Smits has worked as a journalist in France since 1987 after obtaining a Master of Arts in Law. She formerly directed the French daily Présent and was editor-in-chief of an all-internet French-speaking news site called reinformation.tv. She writes regularly for a number of Catholic journals (Monde & vie, L’Homme nouveau, Reconquête…) and runs a personal pro-life blog. In addition, she is often invited to radio and TV shows on alternative media. She is vice-president of the Christian and French defense association “AGRIF.” She is the French translator of The Dictator Pope by Henry Sire and Christus Vincit by Bishop Schneider, and recently contributed to the Bref examen critique de la communion dans la main about Communion in the hand. She is married and has three children, and lives near Paris.
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  • The only criminal provisions in the proposed law are those related to a new offence created for this purpose: trying to save the suicide-minded patient's life.

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