Alliance VITA notes the vote by the Senate on the prerequisite motion on the text relating to assisted suicide and euthanasia. By that vote, the Senators have confirmed the impossibility of reaching a compromise with the National Assembly, at the risk of allowing a highly permissive text to go through.
In that context, on 15th July, the National Assembly will be called upon to vote on its own version of the text, already adopted at its third reading on 30th June. Far removed from the "strict control" regularly claimed by its promoters, the proposed bill in fact opens the way for assisted suicide and euthanasia for hundreds of thousands of people who are not at their end of life.
Alliance VITA denounces a device which trivialises an exceptionally serious act . Whereas the authorisation to cause the death of a person could be granted under a particularly expeditious procedure, the text provides no conscience clause for health establishments, nor any mandatory consultation of the next of kin. Presented as collegial, the procedure in fact leaves the final decision to a single doctor, without any prior examination by an independent authority.
According to Alliance VITA, the stand-off noted between the two parliamentary houses reveals the magnitude of the ethical, medical and societal concerns raised by the text. It clearly shows the impossibility of reaching a common vision around a reform which goes against our commitment to solidarity.
Alliance VITA is making a solemn appeal to the President of the Republic to take heed of the dead-end currently facing the Parliament through a text which severely challenges the third path chosen by unanimous vote by France in 2005 : that for enhanced accompaniment for the sick and vulnerable, based on solidarity, palliative care and the refusal to cause death.