Legislating on the end of life?

There are no specific articles on the end of life in French law. Thus an ac t of euthanasia can be qualified as murder, murder with premeditation or no n-assistance to a person in danger. Recent events and debates have raised t he question of enacting new legislation to deal with this problem. Two cont rary positions could be considered. either create a special offence or expl icity authorise acts of euthanasia. There are major objections to both thes e propositions. The first one would require taking account of various situa tions, - unbearable suffering, loss of dignity, and precise requests, - tha t would be impossible to specify in legislative terms. The second propositi on would be open to the same objection; it would also derogate from the maj or principle of respect for the life of persons and thus risk setting a pre cedent that could be used in other circumstances to evade this principle. F inally, if a law were enacted to this effect, it would constitute a threat for the development of palliative care.