“It’s fine to want to change the law, but you have to have the means”

► Marion N., 81 years old, beneficiary of the minimum old age

Marion is one of the eight people in a precarious situation that the Convention on the end of life wanted to include among the citizens drawn by lot. Since the death, in 2021, of her companion, taken away by cancer, she has lived in a residence for the elderly in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis) and rarely sees her three grown children. She receives the minimum old age pension – just over €900 per month – and has been active in ATD Fourth World since 1994.

“The vote in favor of active assistance in dying? Ah, let’s talk about this vote! Too complicated, poorly explained, poorly done: that’s what I think, and I’m not the only one to say so. I talked about it with other convention attendees, and quite a few were as lost as I was. At one point, for example, we were asked to vote on whether we were for or against euthanasia being open to minors. But the question was posed in such a weird way that I think I got the wrong button and voted the opposite of what I wanted.

My idea is that a minor who has a serious illness and who is suffering should have the same rights as an adult. I don’t see why a 16 or 17 year old guy should ask his parents’ advice when an 18 year old can decide for himself. A year doesn’t make a big difference, does it?

I have a daughter who had health problems when she was a teenager. She spent a lot of time in the hospital. Well, I realized that children who are sick are often more mature than others. Of course, the best thing would be to reach a consensus between the child, the parents and the doctors. But this is not always possible.

And then there is the issue of babies. I have a cousin who has a child with hydrocephalus. Normally, he should have died at birth, but the hospital has worked hard to make him live and his mother is very angry with the doctors. That is a very complicated subject which was not discussed much at the Convention.

Another problem is that of people who have mental illnesses. Personally, I think that if they are cared for properly, these people will never ask to die or to be killed. Also, I voted against the fact that these patients can request active assistance in dying. But I admit that it is complicated. What’s really going on in people’s brains is hard to know.

In fact, I realize that, even after six sessions of work, we lack elements to judge properly, that there are still points to deepen, knots in the head that we cannot to slice.

I especially wonder if we are not doing all this work for nothing. Because, let’s imagine that we decide to provide active assistance in dying in France. But then, we will have to restore the hospitals, train staff. Already there is a lack of palliative care, and there is talk of authorizing euthanasia and assisted suicide. It’s fine to want to change the law, but you have to have the means. »

► Julian L., 35, civil servant

Julian, originally from Ardèche, has been living in Loire-Atlantique for four years after starting his career in Paris. His university course in political science and European politics led him to become a civil servant. This spatial planning specialist works in Nantes but lives in the countryside, in the north of the department.

“The media have relayed the results of the cascading vote which came to close this 6th session, marking the end of the deliberation phase to open that of the restitution, in other words the three weekends remaining to draft the final document which will be submitted. to the government.

This vote represents a high point of the Convention. We sensed that there was a majority in our assembly in favor of changing the law, but we had never really measured it quantitatively. Now we know: 84% of voters considered that the current legal framework does not respond to all situations and 75% felt that access to active assistance in dying should be opened up.

This result shows the trends emerging from the Convention and should be considered as such. Citizens still have the possibility of changing their minds, the vote not being decisive. Moreover, this vote does not necessarily reflect all the nuances of the discussions that we had during the five previous sessions, i.e. fifteen days of debate, and that we will still have during the remaining sessions on such complex questions which it is sometimes difficult to answer yes or no.

Beyond the quantitative, it is also necessary to be attentive to all of our collective reflection, that is to say to the whole range of positions that will be transcribed in our collective deliverable. For example, we can very well consider that the current law is insufficient because it is still poorly applied without being in favor of active assistance in dying. Similarly, one can be in favor of euthanasia while bearing in mind the need to properly frame it by law.

In reality, this vote shows above all that a majority of us are sensitive to the fact that the relationship to death and suffering has evolved in our society. And this in part because of the progress in medicine which we should be delighted about, but which also place more and more patients at the end of life in a situation of unbearable refractory suffering. This renews the ethical issues around the end of life and death.

All the difficulty is to establish the French model which will make it possible to deal with the individual requests which seem legitimate without calling into question the collective solidarities which bind us. This is the task before us now.

As the final phase of the Convention begins, I would once again like to bear witness to the richness of the exchanges and debates. They have always held themselves in a spirit of benevolence and respect. Citizen speech has value when it is built on the basis of collective intelligence, in interaction with others. It has a value when it sits on a journey and confronts individual convictions with the collective. This is also what will give value to our final rendering. »

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