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On May 20, the committee on the end-of-life bill drew up the broad outlines of a project that was much more permissive than expected. In a joint forum, 21 healthcare organizations expressed their fears. Update with Dr Alexis Burnod, who practices palliative medicine at the Institut Curie.
“In just five days of work, parliamentarians have opened up access to induced death more than have the two most permissive countries on assisted dying, Belgium and Canada”. The French Society for Support and Palliative Care (SFAP) is offended, and it is not the only one: after last Friday’s vote in parliament on the bill on the end of life, 21 healthcare organizations say together their immense concern in a forum. They deplore the absence of a framework towards which we are moving and the numerous ethical problems that this poses.
Dr Alexis Burnod: “Many barriers were broken in a few hours”
Contacted by Doctissimo, Dr Alexis Burnod, author of “End of life, a case of conscience“, who practices emergency and palliative medicine at the Institut Curie explains to us the astonishment of caregivers faced with the conclusions of the special commission: “Many obstacles have just been overcome in Parliament before the project is even submitted to the National Assembly and the idea of a supervised assisted dying project is moving away over the course of the commissions.
The doctor mentions, for example, the criterion of prognosis in this access to the end of life, which has finally disappeared and therefore includes many more people, just like the notion of a waiting and reflection period for the patient before the act to die for. “From now on, the doctor can free himself from it, if he judges that it does not honor the dignity of the patient, which is very vague” emphasizes the doctor. The deputies also voted for the possibility of euthanasia on advance directives, “that is to say without ensuring consent before the act.
Euthanasia, which was to remain an exception, when the person was not capable of administering the product to themselves, has also been skipped. “Now it is the patient who chooses, but in this case we all know that in the majority of cases, the patient will choose for caregivers to be involved in all stages of their end of life” says Dr. Alexis Burnod.
“The text also opens up a possibility that no country in the world has ever considered: that the lethal injection can be done by a loved one, and not by a doctor. While we have no idea of the psychological effects of such an act.” he worries.
An offense of “obstructing assisted dying” with what limits?
Unexpectedly, the deputies adopted an “offense of obstructing assisted dying” which risks penalizing any questioning of this system and posing considerable threats to the care of patients at the end of life or on suicide prevention policies, announces the forum.
That is to say that when a person requests this euthanasia, any person who slows down this desire could be punished with 15,000 euros and one year of imprisonment.
“When a person says that they can’t take it anymore, that they want to die, the team of caregivers who try to relieve them, to give them hope or the taste for living would therefore be in the wrong? We are very far from fraternity” the doctor says indignantly.
A text that goes too far?
But why so many changes and relaxations a few days before the final examination of this bill? For the doctor, the promoters of medical assistance in dying want to implement a societal project and no longer provide relief to patients who are suffering from a terrible illness.
“What they want is that we can now decide the time and day of our death, without conditions. But by embarking on this path, all the abuses that we have pointed out in the foreign countries (euthanasia accessible to the most fragile, to disabled people or to the elderly without them being in pain) are those to which we are going”.
The doctor fears the establishment of an “open bar to die for”. By pretending to create “a French end-of-life model”Wouldn’t Emmanuel Macron have opened Pandora’s box, as the tribune signs?