François Blot and Bernard Kouchner: “Let the patient be free to decide on his or her end, not the doctor in his or her place”

On May 12, the National Assembly opened the debate on the end of life and assisted dying . Eighty years ago in France, Social Security was created and women voted for the first time . Of course, it took exceptional historical circumstances for a national union, however brief, to set in stone two social advances focused on justice and solidarity. Today, it is the unique opportunity for such concord, which yesterday extended from the Communists to the Gaullists, to once again cross the Chamber, from its left to its right.

Fifty years ago, the Veil law on abortion came into force , and unity – even partial – had, once again, been a force to be reckoned with, transcending political divisions. Such cross-party mobilization is once again possible. Twenty years ago, the Leonetti law, with its prohibition of unreasonable obstinacy, was in line with the founding law of March 4, 2002 , which had enshrined patients' rights: to be fairly informed, to give informed consent, to be able to refuse.

In turn, 2025 will be able to integrate into law the ultimate request of certain sick people, as we had already envisaged in 2002, a new right framed by the wisdom of the legislator and the ethics of caregivers. The high price paid since the AIDS years, by several decades of struggles for the recognition of the autonomy, knowledge, values ​​and preferences of patients, of their free will, authorizes today to inscribe this ultimate request in the field of democracy in health.

It is time for this century, so sparing of pleasant surprises, to finally deliver a great law of freedom, worthy of the country that drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Let us no longer turn our backs on those eternally ignored by dignified end-of-life support, and let no one any longer describe them as a negligible proportion ("for which we do not legislate"): whether there are 400 or 4,000 of them per year (low and high estimate ranges from the National Institute of Demographic Studies in 2010). This is not an anthropological rupture, nor an uncontrolled entry into the rule of a transgression, already widely practiced but hidden under the carpet: we are talking about recognizing and regulating an act that was previously arbitrary and clandestine.

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