Some 3,000 amendments have been tabled on the controversial bill creating a right to euthanasia for people suffering from an incurable disease. This large number of amendments, if they are well defended by their authors, Thursday April 8, in the National Assembly, will make it mechanically impossible to examine their totality on a single day and therefore prevent the adoption of the proposal. of law.
Of these 3,000 amendments, 2,300 come from Les Républicains (LR) deputies opposed to this text establishing a “Right to a free and chosen end of life” MP Olivier Falorni (Liberties and Territories group), according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
In a Tribune published in Sunday Newspaper, 270 deputies from all sides revolt: “We want to debate. We want to vote. The time for Parliament has come. Let’s respect him ”, plead these parliamentarians in favor of the bill, led by Jean-Louis Touraine (LRM), Yaël Braun-Pivet (LRM), Marine Brenier (LR) and four presidents of political groups, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI), Valérie Rabault (PS), Olivier Becht (Agir) and Bertrand Pancher (Freedoms and territories).
“Existential questions”
“This question has crossed our society for forty years. Several texts have been tabled in the Assembly and in the Senate since 2017. Our fellow citizens challenge us, expect us to debate it and, for the majority of them, that we adopt it ”, they add.
“A quarter of deputies claim by parliamentary obstruction to prevent the Assembly from debating on a major social issue”, had denounced, as of Friday, Mr. Falorni, whose bill had passed a first milestone by being adopted, Wednesday evening, in committee.
“The shameful obstruction of the LR will prevent the vote, Thursday, of the law on the end of life”, denounced, on Saturday, in a press release Matthieu Orphelin, former member of the Freedoms and Territories group, stressing that“To them alone, five deputies The Republicans [Xavier Breton, Patrick Hetzel, Julien Ravier, Frédéric Reiss et Marc Le Fur] deposited (…) 2 158 amendments ”.
Mr. Falorni’s text wants to provide a new response to the painful and sensitive debate on the end of life and euthanasia, five years after the Claeys-Leonetti law, which authorizes deep and continuous sedation. In committee, Mr Falorni acknowledged that his text addressed “Existential questions”. Open a right to “The ultimate freedom” to decide on a medically assisted death would make it possible to respond to a “Hypocrisy” : let people go in “Exile” in Belgium or Switzerland to use it, and close our eyes to “2,000 to 4,000” clandestine euthanasia carried out each year in France “Sometimes without the knowledge of relatives” sick people, according to him.
Godmother of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (ADMD), singer Line Renaud published an open letter to the attention of deputies on Saturday, urging them to give “To each and everyone the possibility of choosing their end of life”.