Seeing the enthusiasm generated by this 11th Bioethics conference, and the third videoconference throughout France and abroad with more than 6,000 participants again this year, Alliance VITA has decided to offer all followers on internet the possibility to follow the last session of the training cycle entitled “Our society in need of healing, how to act in favor of a culture of life?”
Tugdual Derville, Alliance VITA’s General Deputy, will speak live on our site: www.alliancevita.org on the subject “CHOOSE HUMANITY!” In fact, this is a crucial challenge, both personal and collective, to which humanity is confronted today.
Don’t miss this on line conference, Monday February 1, 2016 from 21:45 to 22:00 on our internet site: www.alliancevita.org.
The Bioethics conferences are:
A training cycle in bioethics which addresses current challenges in bioethics throughout several evenings, where one can act in favor of serving life.
After two years focused on understanding the anthropological division “Who is Man?” in 2014, then “The body, from life to death” in 2015, this third cycle of Bioethics training in videoconference brings us towards finding solutions within our grasp, with the theme : “Our society in need of healing, how to act in favor of a culture of life?”.
A unique event organized and broadcast by Alliance VITA, thanks to its volunteer network composed of 1,100 committed individuals and 136 teams:
120 cities connected
More than one hundred experts in the cities connected
The federal control and evaluation commission for euthanasia announced on January 27, 2016, that the number of euthanasia cases officially declared had reached 2,021 in 2015, compared to 1,133 in 2011, therefore an increase of 78.4% during this period.
This commission, charged with verifying the application of the 2002 law decriminalizing euthanasia in Belgium, publishes a complete report every 2 years, but the one covering the years 2014 and 2015 is still currently being drafted.
The preceding report for 2012 and 2013 had already shown a considerable rise in official cases for the preceding years (see the trend p. 14). In addition, the media regularly report more and more numerous abuses on the application of the law, in particular with the euthanasia of depressed individuals who are not at the end of life. The most recent case concerns Laura, a young 24-year old lady, who obtained authorization for euthanasia from three doctors for her “psychological suffering” (she finally renounced to euthanasia on the very day, in September 2015). Several legal proceedings are in process, namely one against a doctor who committed euthanasia on an elderly person who did not fulfill the criteria, or, on the contrary, one against a retirement home for not accepting to practice euthanasia as requested by a 74-year-old woman.
Professor Wim Distelmans, president of the control commission, commented on the 2015 statistics by recognizing that the official euthanasia cases only represent a part of the actual euthanasia acts committed in Belgium: “The number of cases performed but undeclared, remain unknown, which hinders us from having a true view of the full extent of the issue”.
If, by definition, it remains impossible to tally clandestine euthanasia acts, a study carried out by Brussels and Gand University, published in Social Science & Medicine in July 2012, attempted to evaluate this practice: according to this study made among Belgian doctors, the statements to the control Commission only treat 73% of euthanasia cases practiced by Flemish doctors and 58% by Walloon doctors. In other words, 10 years after the law’s implementation, 27% of the euthanasia cases in Flanders and 42% in Wallonia are still not declared.
More generally, the control commission has been subject to heavy criticism these past months, for its negligence in verifying the files filled in by doctors who carry out euthanasia, and for lack of representativeness. At the end of 2015, it could not be renewed within the time frame, due to lack of candidates fulfilling the necessary qualifications
For Alliance VITA, the law on the end of life which has just been voted by Parliament yesterday requires now utmost vigilance by MP’s, health professionals, and healthcare users, to avoid drifting towards euthanasia.
The new law marks the end of a process initiated with proposition 21 by then presidential candidate François Hollande, in favor of “medical assistance to end one’s life with dignity”, a particularly vague expression which has solicited hopes and concerns for nearly 4 years.
Yesterday’s debates, at the National Assembly as well as in the Senate, showed once more that the two main measures – profound and continuous sedation until death, and the mandatory advanced directives, which means that they are to be imposed on the doctor – receive a different interpretation according to each individual’s deep intention. These ambiguities might lead to contradictory medical practices, which will either respect the most vulnerable patients (individuals at the end of life, severely disabled or unconscious) or bring euthanasia or disguised assisted suicides. This is why Alliance VITA has reiterated its’ opposition to these new provisions, and is involved in the collective movement Relieve suffering without killing.
The challenge for the following months is clearly laid out. It is essential that decrees on implementation of this law should fully respect the assurance given throughout the debate by the promoters of the law: that is, that the idea is not to bypass the prohibition of willful killing, which must remain the basis of confidence between care-givers and patients. Alliance VITA, within the collective movement Relieve suffering without killing, will be particularly vigilant to this aspect. Alliance VITA will take an active part in the national and regional vigilance committees which are currently created to counteract the risk of euthanasia by stealth.
In addition to the rapid implementation of the development plan for palliative care announced last month, medical practices must continue to contribute to better relieving pain and to better accompanying individuals at the end of life. This is the objective shared by the large majority of health professionals and patients, when they are well-taken care of: we must be tenacious so the new law proves to be a “bulwark law” against all forms of direct or indirect euthanasia, and not a “stepping stone law” towards an explicit law for euthanasia or assisted suicide.
The Parliament voted on January 27, in the National Assembly as well as the Senate, the final version on the proposed law for the end of life initiated by deputies Claeys and Leonetti.
Concerning this vote, Alliance VITA is aligned with, and is a partner with the movement Relieve suffering without killing, whose statement appears in the press release below.
Alliance VITA support the objectives of vigilance and close follow-up that this new law requires, in particular the following action: “Today at both national and regional levels, our movement is launching, a two-fold measure of vigilance. First on the application of this new law on the End of life (…) Then by verifying the effective implementation of the development plan for palliative care which was announced after a three year delay, and its’ adequacy to the real needs of the French population.”
Press Release: January 27 2016
« Now that the review of the law on the End of life has been concluded, the collective movement Relieve suffering without killing solicits the highest vigilance for the application of this text, whose real intentions remain ambiguous.
The creation of a «right to profound and continuous sedation until death » effectively opens the door to abuses in acts of euthanasia: its’ promoters have orally voiced multiple reassuring assertions, but have consistentlyrefused to have it inscribed “in black and white” in the law that the intention of this type of sedation should not be to provoke death. By supporting this intentional grey zone, this text undermines the relationships between care-takers and patients since the new law does not clearly forbid hidden euthanasia.
Certainly, a few positive amendments were added in view of curbing the threat o facilitating euthanasia, such as for instance by eliminating the shocking phrase “not to uselessly extend life” or the condition of “suffering resilient to treatments” (and not only “to treatment”, in the singular form – which would specifically signify that all other treatments had previously been attempted) in the case of a patient at the end of life. But serious ambiguities remain; in particular:
the criteria, “intolerable” suffering for patients deliberately stopping life-saving treatment, is completely subjective: this unverifiable criteria opens the door to multiple misappropriations in the direction of assisted suicide;
the lack of protection for unconscious patients, incapable of expressing themselves, with the threat of hidden euthanasia by stopping artificial feeding and hydration under the pretext that this would be a “disproportionate treatment”.
This same ambiguity is found in the way the anticipated guidelines are addressed, as if the patient could write his own prescriptions, with the danger of putting a deadly pressure on doctors, whose mission is to care for and accompany as best they can, according to their competence.
According to Tugdual Derville, one of the national spokesmen for the collective movement Relieve suffering without killing: “Today at both national and regional levels, our movement is launching, a two-fold measure of vigilance.First on the application of this new law on the End of life: faced with the risk of euthanasia that we have underlined, we want to protect the essence and the integrity of palliative care. In the Health Minister’s speeches referring to a landmark law the term « final sedation » necessitates particular attention as to how the law can be interpreted. Then the effective implementation of the development plan for palliative care which was announced after a three year delay, and its’ adequacy to the real needs of the French population will be verified. The law on the end of life, as it is so named, threatens to lead to serious confusion between palliative care and euthanasia, via terminal sedation protocols with the cutting off of artificial feeding and hydration. When a law does not clearly protect the most vulnerable people, we are compelled to increase our mobilization to help the sick, their care-takers and relatives to protect them from an unduly systematic, even expeditious, practice of sedation.”
On January 21, 2016, the French National Ethics Advisory Committee published its notice N° 124 entitled: Ethical reflection on the progress of genetic tests linked to very high speed human DNA sequencing.
This notice follows N° 120, dated April 2013 on “ethical questions related to the development of fetal genetic tests on maternal blood”. The committee had emphasized that it was only the first step of a wider reflection on all issues concerning widespread use of high speed DNA sequencing and its medical and societal implications.
As the Ethics Advisory Committee emphasizes, genomics using today’s high speed DNA sequencing contributes to fostering a gigantic data base of people’s health (« big data ») which raises considerable ethical issues, especially in the legal sector of personal privacy.
At the crossroads between fundamental research and clinical medicine, the technical progress already accomplished and currently being carried out in the area of human genomics raises questions on several aspects: personal, familial and collective life in society all at once.
This report evaluates numerous questions, especially those of confidentiality, autonomy, screening prior to conception, the right to know, or not to know, and recalls that the genome is at the boundary line of the individual’s intimacy, mankind’s heritage and our collective well-being.
However, this report is only dedicated to genetic testing progress by very high speed DNA sequencing. Yet to be addressed are considerable ethical questions related to procedures of intervening on human DNA, such as in the area of somatic cells (genetic cell therapy) or that of reproductive or embryonic cells (germ line genetic therapy) using for example the CRISPR-Cas9 technique.
As Alliance VITA’s general deputy, Tugdual Derville recalls, this deals with a major preoccupation, for which the Committee announces having initiated reflection.
