As legislators in France have begun the process of legalizing assisted suicide, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has opened an investigation into whether the law would violate the rights of people with disabilities.
Key Takeaways:
- In 2022, President Emanuel Macron convened a “citizens’ convention” panel of 184 people, of which over half said they agreed with the legalization of assisted suicide.
- Macron announced his intention to legalize assisted suicide in 2024.
- The French National Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of legalization in May of 2025.
- The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has notified the French government that it is investigating the bill.
The Backstory:
After his election in 2022 French president Emmanuel Macron made good on his campaign promise to legalize assisted suicide, convening a citizens panel which would supposedly study the impact of legalization. When over half of the panel agreed with legalization, Macron announced he would push for legislators to take action.
He presented the National Assembly with a bill in May of 2024, which he said would create “a possible path, in a determined situation, with precise criteria, where the medical decision is playing its role.” He refused to call it “assisted suicide” or “euthanasia,” instead saying he preferred “aid in dying … because it’s simple and humane.”
One year later, the French National Assembly passed a bill legalizing assisted suicide.
The Details:
The bill will need to pass the French Senate to become law, which is expected to take months. But for now, it’s an indication that France will likely become the next nation to legalize the deadly practice. The vote passed overwhelmingly, at 305-199, and Macron has urged voters to pass a referendum approving it if the Senate does not move quickly enough.
The bill would allow people who have a “serious and incurable, life-threatening, advanced or terminal illness … characterised by entry into an irreversible process marked by worsening of the … health, affecting their quality of life” and facing “constant, unbearable physical or psychological suffering” to request assisted suicide “freely and in an informed manner.”
The inclusion of “psychological suffering” immediately created controversy, as it would allow virtually anyone — including the elderly and people with disabilities — to access assisted suicide.
The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) announced that its petition, launched last October, had successfully garnered the attention of the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which will open an investigation into the proposed law. The petition gathered over 16,000 signatures, and on May 30, the ECLJ submitted a brief explaining how the bill does violate the rights of people with disabilities.
In less than a month, the committee responded, sending a letter to the French government, stating it had “received credible information indicating that if the above-mentioned piece of legislation is approved, it would result in an infringement of the duty of the State party to respect, protect and guarantee the right to life of persons with disabilities.” The committee additionally said the government needed to provide more information on how the bill would impact people with disabilities.
The committee, in its letter, specifically noted that the “proposed eligibility criteria … appear to be based in ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities.”
The Bottom Line:
The ECLJ’s brief on violations of the rights of those with disabilities sums up the concerns:
Although the bill purportedly intends to remain equitable, it should be noted that the objective criterion of Article 5.3, namely conditions that give rise to a request for euthanasia or assisted suicide, coincides almost entirely with the definition of disability contained in Article 1 of the CRPD.
People with disabilities are eligible for euthanasia not because of an accidental condition, but by virtue of their disability itself, that is, their condition, their way of being. This could have a disproportionate effect on how people with disabilities perceive their lives as worth living, particularly if social or economic pressures push them to consider euthanasia.
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