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End of life: the chiaroscuro of words and concepts

2023-01-13T15:57:20.285Z


FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - The doctor and doctoral student in philosophy Pascale Favre pleads for a precise definition of terms and notions in the debate on euthanasia. According to her, the inflation of concepts undermines the relevance and clarity of the debate.


Pascale Favre is a doctor and doctoral student in philosophy, co-author of

End of life: can we choose our death?

(with Jean-Marie Gomas, Artège, 2022).

First there was the grabbing of dignity.

Then the invocation of freedom.

Now the emphasis on secularism.

After the references to philosophical notions, the appeal to the Republic.

To try to find a justification for the administration of death.

The frequent euphemization of the discourse, deliberately aimed at altering our perception of things, adds to the confusion.

Words and concepts invite themselves into the interventions in a decidedly approximate way.

So important, however, that they have just been assigned an assembly of personalities to submit to lexical work.

Many of the members of this committee display their pro-euthanasia activism.

Yet the vocabulary does not reinvent itself, most words have been officially recognized by the supervisory authorities or even enshrined in law for years.

But perhaps it is above all a question of formalizing a little more, in the footsteps of CCNE's opinion 139, the expression

"active assistance in dying"

and attempt to erase the misleading connotation it conveys.

Some say they refuse to use the word “euthanasia”;

it is the "euthanasic gesture" - that is to say not an aid but a direct administration of death - that the caregivers in their vast majority refuse.

"Help" is their daily activity, above all an aid to live, "active" by nature.

At other times, the CCNE showed more subtlety when, in its opinion 121, it sought to distinguish between “assisted suicide” and “assisted suicide”.

The first rule of ethics does indeed require clarity and precision of language, which is essential for everyone involved to have a fair appreciation of what each word means.

L'

semantic watering down on the contrary induces a loss of understanding of the meaning.

Some words are intended to be reassuring but then lack legitimacy.

Secondly, the invocation of “secularism” appears superfluous.

As soon as it becomes secularism, secularism loses its very essence.

Pascale Favré

It is necessary to review some language elements.

First, "dignity", this concept is inseparable from the human.

And we all want to die with dignity, all of us, the 67 million French people.

Whether one is rich or poor, black or white, Freemason or Catholic or even both… Which would be fair and humanistic.

“To die with dignity” is to die in dignified conditions, relieved of pain, accompanied in an appropriate and fair manner.

Hiding the principle of euthanasia behind the expression “dying with dignity” without naming it is a completely different proposition, radically independent of the princeps affirmation.

If we speak of "chosen" death, then we leave the nursing framework.

It is therefore necessary to distinguish between euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Two very different acts in their realization as in their consequences.

The concealment of these two modalities of induced death behind the misleading expression of “active assistance in dying” cannot erase the reality of the violence of the acts.

But “giving” death is not healing.

Moreover, the State and the medical world share the responsibility of protecting the most vulnerable.

Some countries - such as the state of Oregon, closer to us and more recently Austria - offer a response to those who want to die by authorizing drug-assisted suicide, under strictly determined conditions.

This is another way that respects what is presented as freedom for the patient and protects doctors from having to perform a lethal gesture contrary to their mission.

Enabling does not necessarily mean encouraging.

Euthanasia is an injection that causes the immediate death of the person.

Is this a dignity?

Secondly, the invocation of "secularism" appears superfluous.

First of all because there is not the dividing line between those who extol the merits of euthanasia and those who refuse to deliberately cause death.

Then because once it becomes secularism, secularism loses its very essence.

“Secularism is not one opinion among others but the freedom to have one”

.

The recurrent instrumentalization of a few people with Charcot's disease proves to be very disrespectful of the majority of these patients.

Pascale Favré

"Euthanasia Guarantees Freedom of Conscience"

.

Some deduce from this that it would be the guarantee of a free and enlightened conscience, that it would allow a representation of death sanitized because purified of religious references, or that it would be the basis of the conscience clause granted to practitioners who are asked to perform a lethal gesture.

The relevance of recourse to secularism is doubtful.

It has no monopoly.

“It is not a conviction but the principle which authorizes them all”

.

In fact, the lucidity of the conscience requires an appropriate knowledge of the field of reflection;

as well as the elaboration of a thought which evolves in a constant dynamic.

A free, personal thought, excluding any preconceived idea and open to questioning.

So a thought.

As for the idea that everyone has of his death, it is a resolutely personal confrontation, which is part of a life path rich in the unexpected until the last breath.

Finally, isn't the “conscience clause” – this deontological conscience clause which allows doctors to remain in their medical mission – a question of law rather than of confession?

A poor argument than that of secularism, therefore, to convince of the merits of euthanasia.

This misuse of

Third, "freedom."

In the discourses relating to the end of life, it is understood in a restrictive way as self-determination: it is a question of wanting to choose by oneself for oneself, supposing here the choice of the modality and the time of its dead.

Nothing is so simple in the face of reality.

On the one hand, the speech of a healthy person, at a distance from any personal pathological context, is significantly transformed over the course of the evolution of his disease, in an ever new temporality.

The recurrent instrumentalization of a few people with Charcot's disease proves to be very disrespectful of the majority of these patients, all those who wish to live their life as far as possible, despite severe handicaps, benefiting from a adequate support.

On the other hand, the exercise of freedom requires the existence of a choice, therefore the possibility of access to appropriate medical care.

What a majority of French people do not have to date.

Read alsoMichel Houellebecq: “A civilization that legalizes euthanasia loses all right to respect”

It still requires an absence of coercion.

The “example” of foreign countries shows us that the decriminalization of euthanasia obliges everyone to consider it;

and particularly affects vulnerable people, leading them to do what is expected of them.

Societal injunctions quickly become part of the hearts of the most vulnerable and many death requests are made to avoid the torments of isolation and lack of care, even to "not become a burden" for relatives.

Is this freedom?

The main expectation of the French is to live their end of life by being suitably relieved, not to be euthanized.

Isn't our duty of solidarity, our duty of fraternity, our duty as civilized men to watch over the

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-01-13

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