Originally published at The Crux
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Since Monday, the French Senate has been debating whether to approve controversial legislation that will allow for assisted suicide, with the vote due to take place on Wednesday.
After a lengthy and technical legislative process, the Senate is debating a bill that would change the law around assisted suicide to make it possible under certain conditions, as well as a law seeking to improve palliative care in the country.
The Senate rejected an earlier version of the bill in January, after which the National Assembly – the lower house – revised and passed the legislation now under debate.
Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron sent a letter to his diocese, calling on Catholics to oppose the legislation, saying it is “extremely serious” and an “anthropological rupture” that seeks to “abolish the prohibition against killing upon which life in society has always rested.”
“[T]he final adoption of this bill could only encourage the poorest or most vulnerable patients who lack access to palliative care, or so-called ‘eligible’ individuals who fear being a burden on their families, the medical community, or the social security budget, to resort to assisted suicide or euthanasia,” he said.
Aillet also emphasized that the
