{"id":136537,"date":"2025-05-27T18:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T18:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/136537\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T18:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T18:04:08","slug":"french-lawmakers-pass-assisted-dying-bill-in-historic-first-vote-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/136537\/","title":{"rendered":"French lawmakers pass assisted dying bill in historic first vote \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The French bill includes several safeguards to prevent such outcomes.<strong> <\/strong>To be eligible, patients must be over 18 and either French nationals or permanent residents. They must also have a \u201cserious and incurable\u201d illness that is both life-threatening and has reached an \u201cadvanced\u201d or \u201cterminal\u201d stage. <\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, their suffering \u2014 whether physical or psychological \u2014 must be considered \u201cunbearable\u201d or \u201cresistant to treatment.\u201d Patients must be capable of giving informed consent, and must self-administer the lethal medication, unless unable to do so.<\/p>\n<p>The final call is to be made by each patient&#8217;s doctor. The legislation requires that doctors consult with at least one other medical professional who specializes in the patient&#8217;s pathology, as well as with a health care worker who was involved in the person&#8217;s care.<\/p>\n<p>Assisted dying is already legal in various forms in Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. In the U.K., British MPs <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/bills\/732599\/overview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">voted in favor<\/a> of legalization in November, and the legislation is currently nearing its final phase.<\/p>\n<p>The French bill will now be debated in the Senate, which is controlled by a conservative majority that could seek to amend or remove several provisions. <\/p>\n<p>If the parliamentary process fails to produce an agreement between the two chambers, President Emmanuel Macron \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/emmanuel-macron-medical-assistance-in-dying-bill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">who promised the legislation<\/a> during his 2022 campaign \u2014 has suggested the issue could be put to the public via a referendum, although constitutional experts have questioned the legality of such a move.<\/p>\n<p>French lawmakers also unanimously green-lit a separate bill to improve palliative care in France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The French bill includes several safeguards to prevent such outcomes. To be eligible, patients must be over 18&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2935,2000,299,36,59703,218,5111,59704,6738,9891,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-136537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-assisted-dying","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-major-and-chronic-diseases","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-parliament","15":"tag-patient-rights","16":"tag-patients","17":"tag-referendum","18":"tag-rights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114581121664650351","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}