Social Assisted Suicide at the Heart of the Trial in Paris of Assisted Dying Activists

TRIAL: The trial of twelve assisted suicide activists, tried for helping people obtain barbiturates in order to end their lives, opened Monday before the Paris court.

The trial of twelve assisted suicide activists, tried for helping people obtain barbiturates in order to end their lives, opened Monday before the Paris court. Aged 74 to 89, these members of the discreet Ultime Liberté association are being prosecuted for having, between August 2018 and November 2020, helped dozens of people buy pentobarbital on the internet, a barbiturate leading to rapid and painless death.

In front of a packed room of elderly people who came to support, the hearing opened at the beginning of the afternoon with the appeal of the defendants, several of whom advanced to the bar with frail steps, their silhouettes hunched. These retirees, many of them former teachers, with clean criminal records, are on trial before the criminal court for offenses relating to the legislation on trafficking in illicit substances.

The first day of this trial, scheduled to last until October 9, is devoted to a priority question of constitutionality (QPC). The defense maintains that the prosecution of the defendants goes against fundamental rights, such as the principle of safeguarding the dignity of the human person or the right to die with dignity.

Ahead of the hearing, some 70 members of the association demonstrated in front of the Paris judicial court, yellow chasubles and signs demanding to “control one’s life until the end”. In a corner, an improvised activist choir sang “Die on Stage” by Dalida.

“We are quite satisfied that there is a trial to be able to show (the subject) to public opinion, and perhaps also that public opinion is in favor of a change in the law”, declared Monique Denis, 69, wife of one of the defendants who is a member of the association’s branch in Nancy. Franck, 61, joined the association only a few months ago. A member of his family called on him to end his life. “I come to see if I can help in some way, so that the day I turn 80 and get sick I don’t have to do it behind closed doors”, explains this member who did not wish to give his last name.

Reporting from the Americans

This unique affair began in the summer of 2019 with a report from the American authorities on a Mexican barbiturate sales channel. Slipped in liquid form into brown bottles with blue caps, pentobarbital was shipped around the world with the innocuous “Natural Cosmetics” label.

Following a wave of searches in France in October 2019, the judicial investigation then revealed a semi-clandestine side of the Ultime Liberté association, some members of which “accompany” people wishing to die. Illegally, activists inform them about how to obtain pentobarbital on the internet via encrypted messaging, or even assist them in the process. A degree of commitment that each “accompanist” chooses freely, but which is debated within the very ranks of the association.

Very divisive, the fight for Ultimate Freedom goes beyond the demand of traditional pro-euthanasia associations for a “right to assistance in dying” for patients at the end of life and in great suffering, a burning subject of bioethics which was the subject of a new bill passed at first reading in the National Assembly in May.

Suicide has been decriminalized since the Revolution, but there are many laws that prevent freedom from suicide, nonviolent suicide. “

Conceiving itself as the continuation of the militant movements of the 1960s and 70s (contraception, abortion) on the freedom to dispose of one’s body, Ultime Liberté pushes this logic to its climax and demands the right to “serene” suicide, whether one whether or not you are sick, to the extent that the person making this choice is in full possession of their means and their decision is considered. “Suicide has been decriminalized since the Revolution, but there are many laws that prevent freedom from suicide, non-violent suicide”, said Claude Hury, president of Ultime Liberté and central defendant in the trial.