Sixteen personalities are invited Wednesday February 22 to the presidential table, among which supporters and opponents of a legalization of assisted suicide or euthanasia.
by Béatrice Jérôme
“We are waiting to know the president’s intentions!” The expectation is the same in Matignon and in the ministries concerned. What decision will Emmanuel Macron take at the end of the national debate on the end of life that ends in March?
The fog could start to get up on Wednesday, February 22, during a dinner organized at the Elysée. Sixteen personalities were invited to the presidential table, including supporters and opponents of a legalization of assisted suicide or euthanasia.
The date is not accidental. The Citizen Convention on the End of Life, gathered since December 9, must render an opinion on the following question in March: “The framework of support for the end of life is adapted to the different situations encountered or any changes Should they be introduced? “The approximately 180 participants drawn again from Friday, February 17 to Sunday, February 19 to deliberate, before the last three weekends devoted to” the harmonization and the restitution of their work “. However, in view of their previous debates, it appears that a majority emerges, among the participants, in favor of a legalization of assisted suicide and/or euthanasia.
“an ordered debate and enlightened “
On September 13, 2022, Emmanuel Macron undertook to support this notice to “consider if necessary the details and developments of our legal framework by the end of 2023”. “I have the conviction that you have to move because there are inhuman situations that exist and you have to provide an answer, he explained again on February 12. But the subject is anything but easy and simple. “
It is all the less so since the will of the Head of State to lead an “ordered and enlightened debate” led to that the divisive subjects have not been decided so far within of the executive although two working groups bringing together parliamentarians and health professionals have been brought together. Wednesday dinner should allow Mr. Macron to test possible points of agreement.
The Head of State will be accompanied by three ministers, François Braun (Health), Olivier Véran (Democratic renewal) and Agnès Firmin Le Bodo (territorial organization and health professions). Among the supporters of a legalization of “active aid to die” were invited Jean-François Delfraissy, Chairman of the National Ethics Advisory Committee (CCNE), Alain Claeys, co-author of the opinion of the CCNE rendered on September 13 2022, which “opens the way” to an evolution. Thierry Beaudet is invited as president of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, organizer of the Citizen Convention. But, in 2020, he spoke in favor of “the right to choose a worthy end of life”. Mr. Macron also invited Doctor Denis Labayle, militant for the law of patients to be helped to die, in some cases.
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