France’s National Assembly gave final approval to a law legalising assisted dying earlier this month on July 15, 2026, voting 291–241 to push the measure through without the Senate’s consent after the upper house rejected it twice. The bill now awaits review by France’s Constitutional Council before it can take effect – the latest marker in a slow, uneven, but unmistakable global drift towards permitting assisted death, even as most of the world still bans it outright.
Under the law, only adults with an incurable illness – in an advanced or terminal phase, causing unbearable, untreatable suffering – may request lethal medication of their own free will. Patients must administer it themselves where physically able; a medical professional may assist those who cannot.
The bill has reopened France’s long argument between Catholic tradition and end-of-life autonomy, and doctors who object in conscience must still refer patients to a willing colleague. Euthanasia and assisted dying differ chiefly in who acts: in euthanasia, a doctor administers the lethal dose; in assisted dying (or assisted suicide), the patient takes it themselves, usually via a doctor’s prescription.
Supporters frame assisted dying as a matter of autonomy and dignity – the right to choose how and when to die rather than endure prolonged suffering. Opponents, including disability rights groups, religious leaders and some palliative care physicians, warn of pressure on vulnerable, elderly or disabled people to end their lives, and point to countries like Canada and the Netherlands, where eligibility has expanded well beyond the terminally ill since the laws first passed. France’s own bill has drawn objections from the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist communities, who jointly warned of an "anthropological rupture," while medical bodies remain split over the ethics of doctors participating in death rather than treatment.
Where else is it legal?
The United States: Assisted dying is now legal in 13 states and Washington, D.C. – covering roughly a third of Americans – including California, Colorado, Hawaii and New Jersey. Oregon led the way in 1994 and remains the model most later states have followed. Delaware’s law took effect on January 1, 2026; New York’s will take effect on 5 August 2026, and Illinois follows on September 12, 2026.
Canada legalised assisted dying was legalised in 2016 through its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) law, after the Supreme Court struck down the ban the year before. The law was later amended to drop the requirement that death be “reasonably foreseeable”; a further expansion to cover mental illness alone has been repeatedly delayed, now pushed back to March 2027.
Australia permits assisted dying across all six states and the Australian Capital Territory, for adults with an advanced, incurable condition expected to cause death within six months. Patients may take the medication themselves or have it administered by an authorised clinician.
New Zealand’s End of Life Choice Act passed parliament in 2019; it was endorsed by referendum, and took effect in 2021.
Switzerland has permitted assisted suicide since 1942, open to residents and foreigners alike provided nobody assisting acts from self-interest; euthanasia itself remains illegal there.
The Netherlands and Belgium were the first countries to legalise euthanasia, both in 2002. Dutch law permits requests from minors aged 12 and over with parental consent; Belgium removed the age limit for minors entirely in 2014, under strict safeguards.
Luxembourg legalised both in 2009, after parliament amended the constitution to bypass Grand Duke Henri, who had refused to sign the bill on moral grounds.
Assisted suicide has been allowed in Italy since 2019, in narrow cases involving patients on life support with intolerable suffering; euthanasia there remains illegal. Germany followed a 2020 constitutional court ruling permitting assisted dying; Spain legalised both euthanasia and assisted dying in 2021, and Portugal did the same in 2023.
Asia: No country here permits active euthanasia or assisted suicide, though several recognise a right to refuse treatment. India recognised passive euthanasia in 2018, when the Supreme Court ruled that living wills fall within the right to a dignified death. South Korea’s Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision Act, also from 2018, lets terminally ill patients decline further intervention. Japan, Singapore and Thailand allow similarly narrow withdrawal of futile treatment.
Africa. No country has legalised euthanasia or assisted dying. South Africa has seen the most sustained debate, including high-profile right-to-die court cases, but parliament has not legislated; the practice remains a criminal offence there, as in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, Morocco and Botswana.
Taken together, the pattern is expansion without consensus. Two decades ago, only the Netherlands and Belgium allowed euthanasia; today roughly a dozen countries and a third of US states permit some form of it. But almost every new law – France’s included – has arrived only after years of stalled votes, court challenges and unresolved arguments over conscience, capacity, and where relieving suffering ends and coercion begins.