Nicolas Bauer, Associate Researcher at the ECLJ, was invited by the channel "Le Crayon" for a debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide. Facing Pierre Juston, director of the "Association for the Right to Die with Dignity", he defended human dignity against a misguided vision of freedom.

Human dignity is an objective notion, based on human nature. It is because we are human beings, social beings endowed with reason, that we possess a dignity, not because of an individual subjective judgment. Society's mission is to protect the lives of its members from harm, even when that harm comes from individuals against themselves. Offering death as an answer to people's anguish and suffering is not an acceptable solution.

On the contrary, ADMD puts forward a subjective, individualistic, and epicurean vision of dignity. Taking one's own life becomes a form of freedom, a personal accomplishment in which notions of right and wrong should not intervene.

Pierre Juston claims in the debate not to want to incite suicide or euthanasia, but this is the inescapable effect that a law opening the way to the legalization of these methods of ending a life would have. Once the ban in principle has been lifted, it's the safeguards that will come under attack, as with every so-called "societal" law. Incitement to suicide will create a new norm, and the way will then be open to forced euthanasia, based on the collegial decision of a medical team.

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