Euthanasia: 3,000 amendments tabled in the National Assembly (illustration) -
A. GELEBART / 20 MINUTES
Some 3,000 amendments have been tabled on the controversial bill creating a right to euthanasia for people suffering from an incurable pathology, which is likely to prevent its adoption Thursday by the National Assembly, he said. - we learned on Saturday from parliamentary sources.
Of these 3,000 amendments, 2,300 come from LR deputies, opposed to this text establishing a "right to a free and chosen end of life" from deputy Olivier Falorni (Liberties and Territories group), provided for within the framework of the parliamentary niche attributed to his group.
"Shameful obstruction of LR"
This large number of amendments, if they are well defended by their authors Thursday in the hemicycle, will make it mechanically impossible to examine their totality on a single day.
"A quarteron of deputies claim by parliamentary obstruction prevent the Assembly from debating on a major societal subject", had denounced Friday Olivier 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 on Thursday of the law on the end of life", denounced Saturday in a press release Matthieu Orphelin, former member of the group Freedoms and territories.
A text that addresses "existential questions"
According to Olivier Falorni, "this will scandalize millions of French people who hope that this law is finally voted".
The text of the deputy for Charente-Maritime 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 he recognized that his text addressed "existential questions".
Opening a right to "the ultimate freedom" to decide on a medically assisted death would make it possible to respond to a "hypocrisy": letting people go into "exile" in Belgium or Switzerland to have recourse, and turning a blind eye to the “2,000 to 4,000” clandestine euthanasia practiced each year in France “sometimes without the knowledge of relatives” of patients, according to him.
The subject divides all the parliamentary groups and arouses the embarrassment of the government but several figures of the majority have given their support to the proposal of Olivier Falorni, including the president of the commission of Laws Yaël Braun-Pivet.
Some opponents believe that such a subject cannot be debated in the reduced time of a parliamentary niche when others are radically hostile to the measure for philosophical and religious principles.
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