The Constitutional Council validates the law on the right to assistance in dying with reservations

It is the end of a long legislative journey but perhaps not of the controversial debates. The Constitutional Council validated, on Friday August 14, the law creating a right to assisted dying. The text legalizes under conditions a form of assisted suicide, or even euthanasia. Definitively adopted in mid-July in Parliament, it can come into force when the government has published the necessary implementing decrees. The Sages nevertheless formulated three reservations of interpretation.

A possible refusal, under conditions, for private establishments

One of them returns to “the obligation, for the person in charge of an establishment or service in which the person is admitted or housed, to allow the intervention of health professionals contributing to the exercise of the right to assisted dying”. The management of a private establishment may refuse to participate in an assisted dying procedure, explains the Constitutional Council in its online decision. It specifies, however, that such a refusal can only be opposed “when other establishments are able to meet local needs”.

Pharmacists can refuse to prepare the lethal product

Another reservation concerns the procedure for adults protected under guardianship or curatorship. [...]

The last reservation issued by the Constitutional Council concerns the applicable conscience clause from which doctors and nurses will benefit. The institution extends this clause to pharmacists who refuse to prepare the lethal product.