France mulls over euthanasia

2004-08-27 21:00

Paris - France's health minister has reopened the heated debate on euthanasia, saying in an interview published on Friday the terminally ill should have "the right to die in dignity".

Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy ruled out legalisation of euthanasia but said French laws governing "end-of-life" care needed to be modified for patients facing imminent death.

The National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament, will examine legislation before the end of the year that redefines the options for terminally ill patients, the minister said.

"With this law, the terminally ill will be able to choose to die," Douste-Blazy said. "The law will institute the right to die with dignity."

Describing the rough outlines of the draft, the minister said that bans on euthanasia would not change.

"The act of giving death will always be punished by the law," he said.

A long-standing debate over euthanasia in France was renewed last year after the death of Vincent Humbert, a 22-year-old former fire fighter left deaf, mute and paralysed from a road accident.

Humbert had written a book pleading for the right to die and his mother, Marie, made it known that the two had a death plan worked out. She allegedly gave her son a deadly dose of sedatives that induced a coma and doctors then cut his life support.

In the wake of Humbert's death, the government began a public survey about whether France should reconsider its ban on mercy killing and a parliamentary commission was set up, which drafted the bill.

Marie Humbert called the proposal a positive step but told France-Info radio that the changes would do little to ease the suffering of people like her son who are "locked up in their bodies", and who ask to die.

- AP