French ‘deep sleep’ bill revives euthanasia debate

If passed, the legislation would give dying patients the right to request a halt to treatment and to be placed under general anaesthetic until the moment of death.

Jean Leonetti, a member of parliament for the right-wing opposition UMP party who authored the bill, told Reuters the option would be open to patients with “hours or days to live”.

“The patient has to be at the end of their life and suffering despite the treatment given,” Leonetti said.

“When these elements are present, I (the doctor) am obliged to start sedation that is deep and continues until death.”

Such a request would effectively let patients set their own death in motion, as the state of deep sleep is irreversible.

As in most of Europe, medically assisted suicide is illegal in France, though doctors can suspend treatment under some circumstances for patients who ask for it, provided they provide palliative care to reduce suffering.

Proponents of the new law say sedating the patient differs from euthanasia because the time of death will not be determined.

Religious leaders united in concern

However, representatives of France’s Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities on Monday voiced concerns that the bill could lead to the de facto authorisation of assisted suicide.

“We are launching a joint appeal, anxious and pressing, that this possible new law will not in any way violate this basic principle: all human life must be respected particularly at the moment when it is most fragile,” they said in an open letter published in French daily Le Monde.

If sedation is used “not to relieve the patient, but to cause his death” it would amount to “an act of euthanasia”, they warned.

In Europe only Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland allow euthanasia, with doctors actively assisting patients seeking death. In the United States, Oregon, Washington and Vermont allow doctor-assisted suicide.

French law has evolved little since a 2005 reform setting out when doctors could decide to suspend treatment, despite President François Hollande voicing support for authorising euthanasia during his 2012 presidential campaign.

The debate returned to the fore last year with the case of Vincent Lambert, a young man who fell into a deep coma after a car crash and whose family members have clashed in French and European courts over whether or not treatment should be pursued.

If the law passes, it would bolster Hollande’s image as a social reformer after a hotly contested move to legalise gay marriage in 2012.

But pro-euthanasia campaigners said the bill does not go far enough.

“Everyone says there is no suffering but nobody has ever been in that position (near death),” said Jean-Luc Romero, head of the Right to Die in Dignity association.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)