Assisted dying: MPs approve the procedures for making a request to a doctor

MPs clarify the procedures for requesting assistance in dying. On Wednesday, May 21, the National Assembly adopted the procedure by which a person can request this from a doctor during the marathon review of the bill on this new, much-debated right.

According to the proposed law, a person requesting access to assisted dying must do so from a doctor "who is neither their relative, their relative by marriage, their spouse, their common-law partner, their partner to whom they are bound by a civil solidarity pact, nor their beneficiary."

The deputies wished to clarify, by adopting a government amendment, that the request made by the patient to the doctor must be expressed "in writing or by any other means of expression adapted to his abilities" . The initial version only mentioned an "express request" , referring the details to a decree in the Council of State.

The text provides that the same person cannot submit several requests simultaneously and that a request cannot be submitted "during a teleconsultation" . An amendment by members of the Liberties, Independents, Overseas and Territories group was adopted to specify that the request may be collected at the "home" or "in any place where care is being provided" to the person, if they cannot go to their doctor.

The doctor must inform the person about their state of health and that they can benefit from palliative care. The text also provides that the doctor "should suggest to the person and their loved ones that they be referred to a psychologist or a psychiatrist."

Right-wing MPs have attempted to make consultation with a psychologist or psychiatrist systematic. "Because we can have depressive disorders, particularly anxiety disorders, which can (...) impair judgment," argued MP (Les Républicains) for Hauts-de-Seine Philippe Juvin. "This is effectively putting the patient under guardianship and putting them in the hands of a psychiatrist's decision," retorted MP (Les Ecologistes) for Paris Sandrine Rousseau.

Health Minister Catherine Vautrin stressed that the government would, in the rest of the text, introduce an amendment stipulating that the doctor should obtain the opinion of a psychiatrist "when he has serious doubts about the person's discernment" .

The elected officials must now discuss the next steps in the procedure, including issues of collegiality in deciding whether or not to grant a request for assisted dying. On Tuesday, they approved five cumulative conditions required for a patient to be eligible for the right to assisted dying. The vote on the entire text, in its first reading, is scheduled for Tuesday, May 27. Some 1,100 amendments are still under discussion.