“Calling a text that opens the door to both assisted suicide and euthanasia a ‘law of fraternity’ is a deception,” the archbishop told La Croix. “Such a law, whatever one may desire, will shift our entire health care system toward death as a solution.”
Tours Archbishop Vincent Jordy likewise criticized Macron’s description of the proposed law, arguing that fraternity “means taking care of others, it means supporting them until the end, especially when they are weak and fragile.”
The bishop told the Catholic weekly Famille Chrétienne that “despite the use of terminology which avoids the terms euthanasia and assisted suicide,” the proposal risks bringing about those practices.
In a statement posted to X, meanwhile, Lille Archbishop Laurent Le Boulc’h warned that assisted suicide could hasten the death of individuals who see themselves as burdens upon others.
“Does it not risk further increasing the depressed character of our society in loss of hope?” he wrote. “Does it not risk weakening so many people who see themselves as a weight that has become unbearable for those around them?”
Macron in describing the proposal said that individuals seeking assisted suicide “will have to be capable of full discernment” before being permitted to undergo it.