France passes benchmark bill allowing terminal sedation, not euthanasia

France finally passes a benchmark bill that allows administering sedation to suffering people until death takes them. However, the nation is firm on ruling against euthanasia or assisted suicide. After long years of debate, the bill was finally passed on both lower and upper houses and is a result of the consensus of Socialist and conservative lawmakers.

According to The Guardian, the bill allows patients, whose conditions will most likely lead to quick death, to request "deep, continuous sedation altering consciousness until death." The bill also indicates that doctors are allowed to stop life-sustaining treatments, which also includes artificial hydration and nutrition. Even if sedation and painkillers shorten the person's life, the bill allows them on the suffering patients.

The premise of the law is that patients will be medicated until they die naturally because of their illness or until they starve to death. This new law also includes patients who are in coma and are unable to express their will, following family consultation.

The co-author of the bill, Socialist lawmaker Alain Claeys said the purpose of the bill was to fight a bad death that "still happens too often in France." He said everyone must be given a chance to decide how they want to "live their last moments," as published in the ABC News article. Conservative party lawmaker Jean Leonetti adds that the bill aims to tell every Frenchman that at the end of their lives, they'll be allowed to get sleep, to get soothed, and be serene, especially if their suffering becomes unbearable.

The Business Insider reports that the debates that fueled the bill came from the case of Vincent Lambert. He is the comatose quadriplegic, former psychiatric nurse turned patient who was hospitalized due to a violent car crash. His wife and doctors wanted to administer assisted suicide. However, his parents wanted him to live. His case divided France and has made millions of Europeans consider their own right to die.

The new bill further specifies that doctors will be forced to follow the terminal sedation end-of-life instructions and procedures. They will also be forced to stop treatments whether the patient has willed it in advance or not. The patients may, however, appoint a trustworthy person who can make the decision in behalf of them especially when they can no longer express their own will. Furthermore, the patients may choose where they can be sedated. 

Tags

France, benchmark bill, terminal sedation, euthanasia, mercy killing, assisted suicide, sedation, Alain Claeys, Jean Leonetti

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