End of Life Law: Should there be an "incitement offense" for assisted dying compared to the "obstruction offense"?

The National Assembly adopted two bills on end-of-life care on Tuesday. Numerous conditions have been identified to properly regulate assisted dying. These conditions must be verified by a doctor. If the healthcare professional authorizes assisted dying, the patient must still confirm their request after a period of reflection.

If the patient's decision is confirmed, he or she will have to administer the lethal substance to himself or herself, unless he or she is unable to do so, "that is, either he or she cannot turn a dial at all, or he or she cannot inject a substance," former Health Minister Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo explained on RMC.

An obstruction offense was added to the text on Saturday, May 24, by the deputies. "The obstruction offense was not part of the original text that I had written. It was an LFI amendment that introduced this obstruction offense into the law," reported Agnès Firmin Le Bodo on Apolline Matin .

This offense is similar to the offense of obstructing voluntary termination of pregnancy (VTP). It will be committed in the event of disruption to access to places where assisted dying is performed and will punish any person who exerts "moral or psychological pressure" "by making threats or engaging in any act of intimidation" against patients or healthcare professionals.

"The offense of obstruction involves associations that come and paint the doctor's office. I think we really need to be very vigilant about what we say and what we do with the law," explains the former Minister of Health. The MPs also increased the penalty for this offense, bringing it to two years in prison and a €30,000 fine, to align it with the penalty for abortion.

But Seine-Maritime MP Agnès Firmin Le Bodo "regrets that, in the face of this crime of obstruction, we have not included the crime of incitement." She would have liked the law on assisted dying to also be modeled on the law on abortion, which includes the crime of incitement.

"The offense of incitement to abortion is punishable by two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros. Incitement is characterized by both psychological pressure and guilt-inducing behavior and the provision of biased information," the law on abortion states.

Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo would have liked to add the same thing to the text on assisted dying: "The crime of incitement was truly something major because it respected the balance and this ridge between the patient's choice and respect for the healthcare profession." "I think we should neither prevent nor incite," said MoDem MP Cyrille Isaac-Sibille.

Health Minister Catherine Vautrin dismissed the crime of incitement, asserting that the existing arsenal of repressive measures "already fully covers the risk of pressure and manipulation." She cited abuse of weakness in particular.