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00:00It is a divisive and highly personal issue, whether receiving help to die should be legal or not.
00:06After years of planning, Emmanuel Macron presented a bill in April
00:10that would set a legal framework for such help.
00:12Initially, it laid out the following criteria.
00:15The person had to be an adult, a resident or citizen of France,
00:18capable of discernment of free will,
00:21have a serious incurable disease with a life-threatening condition
00:25that caused unbearable suffering.
00:27But as it initially worked its way through parliamentary committees,
00:30the text was changed before debates.
00:33The wording, vital prognosis,
00:36now says that a person must be in an advanced or terminal phase of a disease.
00:40For the government, this change is too broad.
00:43It wants a return to the initial phrasing.
00:47By referring only to an advanced or terminal phase of a disease,
00:51this can lead to the inclusion of numerous non-fatal pathologies
00:54which go beyond the philosophy of the text.
00:58Debate in parliament will also focus on how and at what stage
01:01such instructions can be given.
01:04With diseases like Alzheimer's in mind,
01:06some MPs on the left and in Macron's party,
01:08they want requests made prior to a patient losing their ability to judge to be valid,
01:14even if the patient later loses their discernment.
01:17Yet other MPs, many of them conservatives,
01:20want the patient to be able to express free will at every stage.
01:24Then there's the question of who makes the call.
01:26For the government, multiple health professionals need to agree.
01:30The doctor who decides to authorise this assistance in dying
01:33will do so as part of a multi-professional collegial procedure.
01:38A number of conservative MPs are dubious.
01:40They fear the decision to end someone's life
01:43will come down to a single health care provider.
01:45On the left, other MPs fear the requests will be weighed down
01:49by lengthy hurdles and committees.
01:51And then there's the question of who will administer the lethal substance.
01:55In addition to a health professional being able to do so,
01:58the bill says the patient or a person of their choice can also administer it.
02:03Also part of the bill, palliative care will be discussed.
02:06With such contentious issues, the debate could run until the summer of 2025.