In early March 2024, Emmanuel Macron announced that he intended to introduce an ‘end-of-life’ bill which, after receiving a favourable response from the National Ethics Consultative Committee that recognized the possibility of a form of assisted dying and after an Assessment Mission on the Claeys-Leonetti Law (which has, since 2016, bolstered the rights of patients and persons at the end-stage of life), was first submitted to a Citizens’ Panel that delivered its conclusions in April 2023, and then made the subject of a report on palliative care in late 2023. This end-of-life bill (the spirit of which was clarified by the President in March) would be introduced in spring 2024, before being submitted to the National Assembly and the Senate.
With this in mind, this article by Sergio Perelman and Pierre Pestieau offers a useful overview of the very diverse arrangements and practices in force in the industrialized countries, which, as we know, are all seeing accelerated population-ageing on account of falling birth rates and increased life expectancy. As a preliminary, the authors helpfully underscore the difference between healthcare that is curative in nature and aimed at keeping patients alive and well, and care aimed at improving the ‘quality of death’.
How and where will we die in the future? The article points up the great disparities that exist between countries, particularly in the areas of palliative care, euthanasia and assisted suicide, as well as the differences over who bears the costs, which are variously divided between welfare systems and families.
