PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — In a totally unexpected move, the French Senate last week gutted a bill seeking to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. With their vote, senators overturned all the provisions of the bill aimed at authorizing the voluntary killing of individuals in an advanced stage of illness. The entire logic of the so-called “loi Falorni” was reversed: the text, as adopted by the Senate, instead created an enforceable right to palliative care and explicitly rejects any use of lethal substances.
With all the amendments that changed the general aim of the so-called “end-of-life” bill, many hoped that it would be adopted in its new form when the time would come for the solemn vote of the entire text, thus forcing the National Assembly to discuss all the changes approved by the Senate.
It was not to be. On January 28, the improbable coalition of the pro-euthanasia senators who opposed the amendments as well as some of those who wanted to make a stand against euthanasia and assisted suicide – even though they were explicitly beyond the new scope of the proposed law – voted against the bill by a majority of 181 against 122.
The bill is to return to the National Assembly mid-February for a second reading of the original, unamended text, which provides for what many call the “most permissive euthanasia legislation in the world.” It will then once again be discussed by the Senate, after which a consensus will be sought. In the absence of agreement, as is foreseeable given the profound opposition between the upper and the lower house, the National Assembly would prevail.
Some consider that the time gained by producing a pro-life alternative, which might just lead the French to question the Assembly’s will to push people who should receive care toward “chosen death,” has been lost by allowing the text to continue under its original form.
The “Syndicat de la famille,” which originated in the “Manif pour tous” that fought against “same-sex marriage,” is among those who consider this to be a “major risk” and has urged the National Assembly to take into account the Senate’s call for “palliative care” instead of a “lethal and brutal response” to end-of-life suffering in its amendments to the text.
Jean-Marie Lejeune, president of the Fondation Jérome-Lejeune, commented, “The vote by the Senate is not a victory, but it is still a warning: resistance against procured death is deeper than was imagined. It is high time for every citizen to realize the emergency at hand and to make themselves understood by the members of the National Assembly.”
The so-called loi Falorni on the “end of life,” which avoids the use of explicit terms such as “euthanasia” and “assisted suicide,” was presented last year by the centrist deputy at the National Assembly, Olivier Falorni, and received full support from French President Emmanuel Macron and his government. It was adopted by 305 votes against 199, with 57 abstentions, on May 27 last year.
In its original state, the loi Falorni was one of the most extreme pro-death bills ever to be discussed in the world. It included only minimal “safeguards” and even provided for fines and prison sentences applicable to anyone who should seek to prevent access to information about end-of-life procedures or to stop someone from actually obtaining euthanasia or assisted suicide. It received a number of amendments last May but still retained most of its most shocking features.
These include allowing any doctor receiving an “end-of-life” request, not necessarily the patient’s own doctor, to decide whether the patient’s suffering would justify his or her being provided with a “lethal substance,” or having such a poison (as it should more correctly be called), administered by that same doctor.
Except for cases when the patient would be incapable of clearly expressing his or her will, the doctor would only need to consult another doctor (familiar with the type of pathology of the patient) to get a second opinion. This could be done by teleconference without the second doctor ever seeing the patient; the second doctor’s advice would not be binding.
Following the request, the first doctor would have two weeks to give his answer, both orally and in writing, after which the patient would have exactly 48 hours (no more) as a cooling-off period. At the end of this period, his or her life could theoretically be ended without delay. If, after three months, this should not have occurred, the doctor would again check whether the patient still was able to give free and informed consent. Patients would always be free to change their mind, but this is but small consolation in the face of a legal right to assisted suicide or euthanasia.
Conscientious objection, under the terms of the loi Falorni, would be a right for medical personnel, limited by an obligation for objectors to refer their patient to a doctor or nurse who would be willing to carry out an “end-of-life” procedure, but not for pharmacists. These would be under a legal obligation to prepare and procure the lethal substance, no questions allowed.
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As for collective entities such as hospitals, clinics, hospices, or retirement homes, they would have no right as such to conscientious objection and would incur penal prosecution if they were to prevent an “end-of-life” team to enter their premises at the request of a resident. This would in practice sign a death-warrant for any such entity whose moral and ethical code was against euthanasia and assisted suicide – in particular Catholic healthcare facilities.
In its first reading last week, the French Senate did not reject the bill as such but rewrote its main articles in order to make them apply only to palliative care. The new wording of its four main articles now reads:
– Everyone has the right to the best possible relief from pain and suffering.
– Every person may benefit from this right until their death without any voluntary intervention intended to cause death or assist in dying.
– In the presence of refractory suffering … the physician is obliged, with the consent of the person, to implement appropriate and available means, within the framework of scientific knowledge, even when these means are likely to alter consciousness or shorten life, provided that their sole purpose is to relieve suffering.
– This right is enforceable and constitutes one of the components of the right to the relief of suffering referred to (in the previous articles).
However quixotic, given that the National Assembly will have the final say, the Senate’s clever and clear response deserves gratitude and applause from all those who respect life. The bill was hollowed from the inside instead of being rejected wholesale, or only amended in its most outrageous dispositions, and this will force the members of the lower chamber to argue and discuss its new meaning.
Philippe Mouiller, a member of the center-right “Les Républicains” (LR) who supported the Senate’s rewriting of the text, acknowledged that it has been “emptied of its meaning.” Nonetheless, French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist decided not to withdraw the bill, explaining that she wanted it to be re-discussed by the Assembly.
The bombshell tactics of the Senators inspired the Left to slam their “move to heap ridicule on the National Assembly.” They were not impressed. Anne Chain-Larcher, LR, vice-president of the Senate, stated, “The Senate’s text is not that of the National Assembly. It demonstrates that freedom and dignity do not imply the possibility of killing, but the effective assurance that society will not leave anyone to suffer without a response.”
Interestingly, Communist Senator Pierre Ouzoulias criticized the rewriting of the text, explaining that, as it stands, it would amount to a reversal of the Claeys-Leonetti law that currently governs end of life care in France. Not without reason, he argued that the rewritten bill could lead to a ban on stopping hydration during deep and continuous sedation until death. This current provision was the “response” provided by French law to the Vincent Lambert case: to authorize the withdrawal of care, including hydration and nutrition, to accompany the “terminal sedation” of a person suffering from a serious illness or profound disability but not necessarily at the end of life, with the certainty that the person would die of thirst, given that this is a legally irreversible process.
RELATED: France’s top court decides brain-damaged Vincent Lambert must die
Senator Ouzoulias, no doubt unwittingly, thus highlighted that the Claeys-Leonetti bill of 2016, and even the first Leonetti “end-of-life” bill that became law in 2006, already allow for euthanasia, albeit slow euthanasia. The 2006 bill had already introduced the possibility of stopping hydration and nutrition for a person in the “advanced or terminal” stage of an illness, even though giving them food and drink would not harm them.
In a one-hour interview with a well-known Dominican web-preacher, Father Paul-Adrien, Grégor Puppinck, president of the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), recently commented on all the most shocking aspects of the original “Loi Falorni.”
Puppinck shows with great insight that what is sought is not the relief of suffering but a new view of death and, above all, an absolute claim to human freedom. This is important to understand because it shows that this is an ideological undertaking perfectly in line with Masonic thinking, which rejects dogma as such as well as the law of God in order to proclaim the autonomy of man.
He also underscores that in promoting assisted suicide and euthanasia as they are doing, Falorni and the French government are clearly targeting Catholic healthcare.
Pro-lifers can now only hope that, should the lower chamber fail to understand the gravity of that which is at stake, continued resistance by the Senate will lengthen the law-making process to such an extent that discussion of the bill does not complete its course before the next legislative or presidential elections.
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