Since Monday, the French Senate has been debating whether to approve controversial legislation that will allow for assisted suicide, with the vote due to take place on Wednesday.

After a lengthy and technical legislative process, the Senate is debating a bill that would change the law around assisted suicide to make it possible under certain conditions, as well as a law seeking to improve palliative care in the country. 

The Senate rejected an earlier version of the bill in January, after which the National Assembly – the lower house – revised and passed the legislation now under debate.

Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron sent a letter to his diocese, calling on Catholics to oppose the legislation, saying it is “extremely serious” and an “anthropological rupture” that seeks to “abolish the prohibition against killing upon which life in society has always rested.”

“[T]he final adoption of this bill could only encourage the poorest or most vulnerable patients who lack access to palliative care, or so-called ‘eligible’ individuals who fear being a burden on their families, the medical community, or the social security budget, to resort to assisted suicide or euthanasia,” he said.

Aillet also emphasized that the solution to suffering is to improve palliative care rather than ending a life. 

“Almost all patients tempted to request assisted suicide or euthanasia abandon the idea once they are cared for in a palliative care unit capable of supporting and relieving their suffering, but in France, palliative care is still so inadequate, despite several laws adopted almost unanimously, that nearly half of our fellow citizens still cannot benefit from it,” he said.

As it stands, the bill would allow someone with a terminal or incurable illness to request lethal medication, usually to administer themselves, although if they are not capable it can be administered by a medical professional. 

However, currently five conditions must be met: Legal adulthood, free and informed consent, an incurable illness with a life-threatening prognosis, suffering resistant to treatment, and stable residence in France to prevent “death tourism.”

Following the Senate’s rejection of the bill in January, the Senate’s Social Affairs Committee has revised the text, narrowing the eligibility to patients with a short-term life expectancy. There is also the ability for doctors to reject the procedure on conscience, but they must refer the patient to someone else.

UK, Scotland and further afield

In his letter, Aillet pointed to the recent defeats of assisted suicide in the UK and Scotland as grounds for hope that the bill could be defeated. 

“Nothing is ever lost in advance, however, as demonstrated by the turnaround that has just occurred in Scotland, where Parliament rejected, on March 17, the bill that would have legalized euthanasia, and in the United Kingdom, where the House of Lords opposed, on April 24, a similar bill,” he said.

In the UK, the bill for assisted suicide fell after it ran out of parliamentary time while it was being debated in the House of Lords, with over 1200 amendments to the bill tabled. It passed in the House of Commons in June 2025 with a majority of 23 MPs.

Supporters of the bill said they would reintroduce it at the next parliamentary session, which starts May 13.

In Scotland, in March this year the parliament voted against an assisted suicide bill, with 69 Members of Scottish Parliament (MSP) voting against and 57 voting for. To pass, it needed the backing of 64 MSPs.

Liberal Democrat Liam McArthur, who tabled the bill, said he was “devastated” following the vote but added that the conversation “isn’t going away.”

Assisted suicide was brought into sharp relief in Spain in March this year after a young woman, Noelia Castillo, was euthanised after her father unsuccessfully fought several legal battles to try to prevent it from taking place.

Euthanasia has been legal in Spain since 2021. The law allows adults with “serious and incurable” diseases that cause “unbearable suffering” to choose to end their lives, provided they are a Spanish national or legal resident.

Further, the person must be “fully aware and conscious” when they make the request, which needs to be submitted twice in writing, 15 days apart.

Bishop José Mazuelos of the Canary Islands, and president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference’s Subcommittee for the Family and the Defense of Life, said it was “barbaric that, when faced with a vulnerable person, the middle ground is chosen: Eliminating them and applying euthanasia.”