On Monday October 5, 2015, the legal amendment concerning the end of life will be examined at the second reading at the National Assembly. Alliance VITA adds its voice to the call to action “Relieve Suffering without Killing” which invites people to demonstrate on Saturday, October 3, 2015 at 11 a.m. in the 13 large city prefectures of the new regions in France, to denounce the perpetual postponement since 2012 for developing palliative care.
This motion, amended, but not voted on by the Senate on June 23, 2015, will return to the Assembly according to the preceding version which was voted on March 17, 2015.
This law is dangerous and has gray zones:
- It intends to implement “profound and continuous sedation until death” which opens the door to the risk of euthanasia, whether it might be explicit or masked.
- It is likely to ruin or denature the necessary efforts in favor of palliative care.
- It is likely to threaten or exclude elderly, handicapped or seriously ill people.
For Tugdual Derville, general delegate for Alliance VITA, author of The Battle against Euthanasia and one of the spokesmen for Relieve Suffering without Killing : “To guarantee the sickest, the most dependent, and the elderly their rightful place in the heart of society is an urgent social matter. The government’s promise to develop palliative care, without real decisions nor concrete means, has become a constant alibi for imposing this law concerning the end of life. But this law has gray zones, produces anxiety, and divisions, flirting with a slippery slope towards euthanasia.”
Founder and webmaster for the web site www.sosfindevie.org, Alliance VITA has been heard on a regular basis before Parliament in the course of its missions, projects and successive legal propositions concerning the end of life. Alliance VITA is a member of the associations which support the movement “Relieve Suffering Without Killing”, sponsored by the quadriplegic, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, whose story provided the inspiration for the film ‘The Untouchables’.
