WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #344 - Anti-validism, Bill on euthanasia: A dignified death after an undignified life? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

This month of December 2023, the council of ministers should approve a
bill legalizing "active assistance in dying", with a view to an
examination in the National Assembly in the first quarter of 2024. If a
majority of progressive forces are favorable to this development, it
also raises strong questions from oppressed groups. ---- Despite largely
favorable public opinion and numerous demands from political leaders and
civil society, the bill on "active assistance in dying" has been a long
time coming but is now on the legislative calendar.

With one voice, political leaders denounce France's delay, a
conservative reluctance in the face of this social progress: the right
of everyone to have control over their own body. The parliamentary left
thus seems to line up almost entirely behind the defense of the right to
a "dignified" and autonomous death. Criticism of the consequences of
legalizing euthanasia and/or assisted suicide would be the prerogative
of the "pro-life", the Catholic right, the conservatives, opposed to
this social progress.

However, it is urgent to go beyond moral or individualizing arguments,
to look at what is involved in legalizing "active assistance in dying"
in the context of a capitalist, ableist and patriarchal society, where
the public health service has been actively dismantled by successive
governments for several decades.

There is no need to trace the thread of the active destruction of the
public health service to highlight this hypocritical paradox which
consists of claiming to open up new rights in matters of health while
diminishing day by day the real possibilities of Health care access.

Palliative care[1]is no more immune from damage than other sectors.
There we find the permanent injunction, which exhausts workers, and
especially women workers, to do better with fewer means. Thus the
Regional Health Agencies (ARS) claim on one hand to deploy end-of-life
policies at home for those who wish it, but on the other hand destroy
the already existing palliative care structures at home.

The right to access palliative care for anyone who needs it has been
enshrined in law since 1999. Twenty-four years later, successive
evaluation reports have all made the same observations: lack of
structures, lack of means, personnel, lack of training in palliative
care, lack of knowledge of the laws governing the end of life.

Despite existing structures, medical expertise and knowledge about
end-of-life support, people continue to die badly in France, and the
lack of resources has a lot to do with it.

What free choice in an able-bodied society?
In France and internationally[2], anti-disabled activists are trying to
make people understand the consequences that the legalization of
euthanasia would have for disabled people by recalling their current
living conditions.

An informed choice involves having several options. However, when we
live below the poverty line, when we cannot choose where we live, with
whom, choose what time we eat or shower, when we do not have access to
public places, to administrations , to schools, to shops, nor to a large
part of the places of leisure and socialization, when we do not have
enough financial aid to acquire the adapted equipment, not enough hours
of human help to eat, to dress , go out, that we therefore depend on our
loved ones, that we cannot find work or that we work in ESAT outside the
framework of labor law, that the pain is not well relieved because it is
minimized, that we are infantilized, considered unproductive, a burden
on the community or we regularly hear ourselves say "in your place I
couldn't"... how can we talk about choice?

For many, it seems more possible to provide access to a "dignified
death" than to a dignified and autonomous life. Providing access to
euthanasia without having constructed a viable alternative, without
having led a real fight against ableism, amounts to making death the
most accessible option for people with disabilities.

Give women the right to age
Women are also particularly concerned by end-of-life issues: the elderly
are mainly old women (3/4 of EHPAD residents are women) and people who
accompany disabled, elderly or end-of-life people , professionals or
caregivers, are also mostly women.

How can we talk about free choice after a lifetime of internalized
social injunctions and gendered representations that condition women to
the fear of being a burden for their loved ones, their children, and
society? The risk that a woman considers euthanasia because she thinks
she does not deserve attention, care, time or money is not a
hypothetical risk.

The suffering of women and their desire to die is a political fact. It
finds its roots in the violent manifestations of patriarchy (prevalence
of sexual violence, economic insecurity, discrimination, free domestic
work) which directly affect the mental health of women. Women are
therefore more at risk of being isolated or experiencing violence as
they age. For example, they are six times more likely to be left by
their partner following a cancer diagnosis.

More than a representation of independent women, who would decide in
complete autonomy the moment and means of their deaths, we need to
develop a feminist vision of solidarity at the end of life, in which old
women demand attention, time, means and the right to be old.

We must not be fooled by legislative safeguards that would prevent
abuses. A well-written law has never been the guarantee of real
application and decreeing equality has never been enough to make it happen.

No freedom without social equality
Without taking a position here in a simplistic binary for or against
euthanasia, it seems essential to reintroduce into the debate a
political and materialist reading, anchored in a real analysis of the
situation.

To the liberal notion of individual freedom which claims that opening
this right to certain people would have no impact on others and on
society, we must respond with that of collective freedom, by showing the
consequences of such changes on oppressed groups.

It is up to us to build a world guaranteeing everyone living conditions
dignified enough to be able to plan for themselves, starting by
supporting feminist and anti-disabled demands and fighting for access to
quality care for all.

Pauline (UCL Finistère)

To validate

[1]Palliative care is active care delivered with a global approach to
the person suffering from a serious, progressive or terminal illness.
The objective of palliative care is to relieve physical pain and other
symptoms, but also to take into account psychological, social and
spiritual suffering (SFAP).

[2]See in particular Not dead yet in Canada, a group defending the
rights of disabled people opposed to the legalization of assisted
suicide and euthanasia Notdeadyet.org.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Projet-de-loi-sur-l-euthanasie-Une-mort-digne-apres-une-vie-indigne
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