Didier Sicard warns of the risks to vulnerable people after the assisted dying reform is passed

Paris – 16 July 2026: After the law on the right to assisted dying was finally passed, physician Didier Sicard warned of possible consequences for particularly vulnerable people. The honorary president of the National Consultative Ethics Committee believes that the new legal framework could endanger people whose decisions are influenced by illness, dependency, or family burdens.

In particular, Sicard regrets that, in his view, the law does not sufficiently prevent an individual right from affecting those around the person concerned. This includes not only healthcare staff but also relatives. Especially for elderly people, people with disabilities, or those requiring intensive care, the awareness of being a burden to others can impair freedom of decision-making. His criticism therefore targets the social conditions under which a formally voluntary wish is formed.

Parliament approved the draft on 15 July in its final reading, after the Senate had previously rejected the key provision once again. This gave members of parliament the final decisive say in the legislative process. On 30 June, the National Assembly adopted the text with 295 votes in favor and 232 against. The reform institutionally separates France’s regulation of active euthanasia from the law expanding palliative care, which was passed at the end of May.

The text allows adults access to assisted dying if they are French citizens or are regularly and legally resident in France. Conditions include suffering from a serious and incurable illness, a prognosis of advanced or terminal-stage illness, experiencing unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved, and being capable of forming a free and fully informed will. As a rule, the person concerned must administer the lethal substance themselves; under certain conditions, they may entrust its administration to a physician or nursing staff member.

The treating physician reviews the request and must involve additional specialists and, where necessary, a psychologist, as well as a trusted person or caregiving relative. The regulation provides for collective discussion and a reflection period. Healthcare staff may refuse to participate on grounds of conscience. These safeguards are intended to combine patient self-determination with protection from external influence; however, critics such as Sicard doubt that procedural safeguards can reliably identify social and family pressures.

The debate touches on a fundamental conflict of objectives in French health policy. Supporters see the reform as a tightly limited response to unbearable suffering at the end of life. Opponents point out that access to palliative medicine remains uneven across regions and that the decision to choose death must not be shaped by shortcomings in care or loneliness. The new regulation therefore changes not only health law but also the responsibilities of families, the care sector, and the state at the end of life.

Sicard was President of the National Consultative Ethics Committee from 1999 to 2008 and in 2012 chaired an influential report on accompanying people nearing death. His current statement shows that the passage of the law does not end the ethical conflict. The decisive factors will be how physicians assess the criterion of free decision-making, how effectively external control mechanisms are designed, and whether the expansion of palliative care is actually implemented alongside the new legal status.