Overview
- The Senate begins examining the palliative-care and assisted-dying proposals on Tuesday, 20 January, with a solemn vote on the assisted-dying text set for 28 January.
- The Social Affairs Committee reframed a broader right to aid to die into medical assistance to die restricted to patients with a very short-term prognosis of about fifteen days.
- Committee amendments extended the conscience clause to pharmacists and removed the offence of obstructing access to assisted dying.
- France’s Catholic bishops escalated their opposition, as Bishop Matthieu Rougé criticized what he called government insouciance and the episcopal conference published a public appeal.
- Segments of the medical profession, notably geriatricians and palliative-care specialists, warned against normalizing lethal acts and joined protests, while uncertainty surrounds Health Minister Stéphanie Rist’s presence because she is campaigning in a Loiret by-election.