France legalizes euthanasia and assisted suicide, fulfilling Macron’s promise

France’s National Assembly passed a bill legalizing euthanasia – a top priority of President Emmanuel Macron – despite continued opposition from the French Senate.

(LifeSiteNews) — France passed a bill on Wednesday legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide after an aggressive push, despite continued opposition from the French Senate. The 291-241 vote makes France one of a handful of European countries that have legalized killing oneself in a medical setting, including Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The vote is the result of a long parliamentary battle, three years after President Emmanuel Macron first introduced the issue by calling for an “aid in dying” law.

Over the span of 14 months, members of the National Assembly passed the bill three times before senators rejected it each time. “In 2022, I made a commitment to open this path with the French people,” Macron said on X. “With seriousness, humility, and in full respect of our democracy, that commitment has been honored.” “On July 7, the Senate passed, by a narrow majority of 169 to 164 ... a preliminary motion to outright reject the bill rather than debate it, and this motion itself called on the government to end the legislative process,” Catholic World Report explained.

“Rather than heeding this call, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu invoked Article 45 of the Constitution, which allows the government to give the National Assembly the final say when repeated readings fail to produce an agreement between the two chambers. He then referred the bill back to the National Assembly for a fourth and final vote instead of a fourth reading in the Senate.” Thus, the bill passed because the National Assembly overrode the Senate’s opposition, as is permitted under the French Constitution.

The law cannot go into effect until the Constitutional Council reviews it, within a month. It legalizes both euthanasia, in which a lethal substance is administered by a doctor or nurse, and assisted suicide, in which the patient self-administers it. To be eligible for either form of death, the patient must be an adult, a resident of France, deemed mentally stable, diagnosed with a serious and incurable illness, in an allegedly advanced or “terminal” phase of that illness, and reportedly unable to obtain relief from suffering through an existing treatment.

The patient must be deemed capable of making a free and informed decision. Pro-life advocates have noted that such “safeguards” – which still allow for murder and suicide – are often violated in practice and later rescinded. Self-administered death is to be the default, while a doctor or nurse may administer the lethal injection only if the patient is physically unable to do it.