法国医学道德委员会近日通过一项规定，称病人“在神志清醒的情况下坚决、反复要求”结束生命时，应允许对其施行辅助自杀。由此，法国在安乐死合法化进程中又迈进了一步。该委员会恳请对那些毫无治愈希望的病人施行人道主义责任，允许他们在医生协助下结束生命。不过，是否对病人施行辅助自杀需由一个医学小组集体决定。此前，法国总统奥朗德曾要求该委员会就何种情况下可批准进行辅助自杀进行详细调查，并有意在6月份将安乐死合法化草案提上议事日程。法国在2005年曾通过一项法律，允许医生对病人使用一定量的止痛药物，在止痛的同时也能缩短病人的生命。

 

France's medical ethics council moved a step closer to legalizing euthanasia by ruling that assisted suicide should exceptionally be allowed when ailing patients make "persistent, lucid and repeated requests" to end their life.

 

Using the term "assisted death" rather than euthanasia, the council invoked a "duty to humanity" to allow a patient "suffering from an ailment for which the treatment has become ineffective" to die.

 

A medical team, not a sole doctor, would take the decision.

 

The council's conclusions came after President Fran?ois Hollande asked it to examine the precise circumstances under which such steps could be authorized, with a view to tabling draft legislation by June.

 

Changes were necessary, he said, as, "the existing legislation does not meet the legitimate concerns expressed by people who are gravely and incurably ill".

 

A 2005 law already authorizes doctors to administer painkilling drugs at levels they know will, as a secondary effect, shorten a patient's life.

 

"However, the law can offer no solution to certain cases of prolonged agony or to psychological and/or physical pain that, despite the means employed, remain uncontrollable," said the council.

 

In these rare cases, the patient should be allowed to be administered "suitable, deep and terminal sedation", it said.

 

A report recently handed to the council found that there was widespread dissatisfaction among terminally ill patients and their families over a "cure at all costs" culture in the medical establishment.

 

It had called for doctors to be allowed to take moves to hasten death for terminal patients in three specific sets of circumstances.

 

In the first case, the patient issues an explicit request or gives advance instructions in the event of him or her becoming incapable of expressing an opinion.

 

The second case envisages medical teams withdrawing treatment following a request by the family of a dying and unconscious patient.

 

The third would apply to cases where treatment is serving only to sustain life artificially.

 

The author of the report, Professor Didier Sicard, stressed that he did not support any measures which "suddenly and prematurely end life".

 

"We are radically opposed to inscribing euthanasia in law," he said.

 

He also came out against Swiss-style clinics where people are provided with lethal medication to enable them to end their own lives.

 

There are about 3,000 euthanasia cases in France annually on average, all of them illegal, according to France's national demographics council.

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